Fight for the Shaman Queen
by LeeMeru
Summary: C4 up. During the Shaman era, the Asakura Clan was said to have disappeared due to trying to stop a deathly fate upon their country. Now terror has come on Yoh and Anna. Will they be able to fight it together, or fall as the clan had 18 years ago.R&R YxA
1. Meeting You

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King….

Giving a shot at trying to write a shaman king fic… so here it goes.

Just in case you guys have questions here, I changed Anna's trademark bandana to a scarf. Why? Because when I feel inspired enough to draw her its going to be a scarf. Not a bandana, she's to pretty to have a crappy red cloth around her head.

Summary: During the Shaman era, the Asakura Clan was said to have disappeared due to trying to stop a deathly fate upon their country. For years their country has honored the clan and their success, but 10 years have passed and they have already been nothing but a legend and a myth. The Kyouyama Clan has been appointed to run the country, and the head of the clan's daughter is a strong itako. After an attack upon her, a boy had saved her and the head appointed him as her bodyguard for the time being. Something lies within their path that is blocking them from crossing… but what?

**Fight for the Shaman Queen**

**Meeting You**

"Uwahhh…" A boy of 18 yawned as he rolled out of his futon and rubbing his tired, and sleepy eyes. His white yukata hanging off his well-toned body, only to be held up by a tight rope wrapped around his light 6-pack torso. (A/N: Sounds hot XD)

Sluggishly walking to the washroom and dragging his feet along the floor, he took off his yukata and dipped into the onsen. "Ahh. This feel soooo good." He closed his eyes and sat in the water. He closed his eyes and almost fell asleep when…

" YOH! Hurry up and get out here! Your breakfast is getting cold!" A gentle, yet death-frightening voice of a woman known to be his mother yelled out.

"Hah. Yeah, yeah." Slightly startled, he slowly got out of the soothing water and wrapped a towel around his waist. He did his morning routine, and changed into his usual button up T-shirt and a black pair of pants with random belts hanging all over, and went straight to the living room where his parents and grand parents await.

"Ohayou minna" Yoh greeted cheekily at his uptight family.

"Yoh, do not greet your parent that way. That includes your grand parents too." A woman with long black hair chided her son softly. "Mikihisa! Say something to your son!" Next to the woman sat a man, well in his late thirties. Across sat a short old man, who had gray hair and traits of male pattern baldness. Next to him was a old woman sipping her tea quietly, with her glasses on and her eyes closed.

" Miyako why do you have to yell at him today? He did it every other da- I mean. Don't disrespect your parents!" Her husband sweated heavily at the glare his wife was giving him, and went on giving him a small lecture that was pretty much all just rambling.

"We don't really mind my daughter. As long as Yoh continues his training, let him feel free to continue calling us what he wants. Besides, he has been doing quite well so far." And old man sitting on the floor, feet tucked under him, said. Right after he had said that, for some reason the old woman's glasses seemed to shine.

Yoh caught this and used this chance to get away. When her glasses shine, this can't mean that anything good will happen. "That cool Yohmei-jii chan. I'm gonna go out for a walk. I'll be back soon!" Walking to the front door and as he put his sandals on, he saw him mom come running to him holding a piece of paper.

She handed him a list with some groceries and asked, "Could you go and pick these stuff up for me? I need them for tonight's dinner, and we need to restock on food." Yoh smiled, nodded and left.

"It's been 18 years since that day… I wonder if our fate will ever change." Her eyes darkened and her vision fell to the floor and right then she felt her husband's presence behind her.

"I get the feeling that something's going to happen today. But if it doesn't, I guess we'll just have to keep on waiting till that day comes." Mikihisa smiled at her in reassurance and both went back to the living room.

**Yoh's POV**

It's going to be a long way to walk down a mountain so might as well retell my whole story to myself. Well first off, my name is Asakura Yoh, currently the heir to the Asakuran Clan. Currently is a strange word to use but just for the record, I wasn't actually the first born. According to Kino-baa chan's history lesson, there was someone before me. My twin actually, if my memory tells me so. Basically I think he was a twin gone bad. Somehow he got his spirit after he was six months old, and I guess someone decided to kidnap him and manipulate him so they could control him and his powers.

Something tells me that he's just a baby gone bad. I know he's my brother and I shouldn't be talking crap about him, but everyone always says that twins have this weird twin connection of some sort. And according to my twin telepathy, I say he did everything that he did, on his own free will.

Anyways, back to my story. Well about 2 months after he was 'kidnapped' a war broke out between us, the Wind country, and the Fire country. It was deathly and a lot of shamans went to fight for our country only to end up being killed by the Fire Country. Our king had to go head front and face the enemy along with his royal guards. When they got there, they were all burned to death on the spot without even lifting a finger.

According to Kino-baa chan, the one who was to do something like this was our own kind, and even worse, my own brother. I shivered at the mention of that word I've really come to hate. Kino-baa chan said somehow they 'manipulated' him with their psychic and hypnotic powers, but I said he was evil enough on his own. As our own blood, my family took on the task taking him down, but supposedly he was way to strong. But with the combined power of ten people they were able to seal away his powers temporarily at the cost of their own lives.

My family did this to protect the only and youngest child to the family, me. My mom and dad were the oldest of the siblings in the clan, and Kino-baa chan and Yohmei-jii chan were the oldest of the old. So the rest of the Asakuran clan decided that they would sacrifice their lives, all for me to live. Supposedly, their main goal was to distinguish the Asakuran clan, and they knew that we were living in the Wind country. We didn't want the entire Wind Country to turn on us either so remaining of my family decided to live secretly on the top of a mountain.

Everyday I train harder and harder to become what's expected of me, but sometimes I think it'll never be enough. I'm not trying to put myself down, but seriously I can't even beat my own dad more or less Yohmei-jii chan. I know my spirit, Amidamaru, is strong and all… but I feel like my efforts are always in vain. Maybe if I find the right person to train me, then I'll be strong enough. Speaking of Amidamaru, where is he? By now he's usually freaked me out by now.

I felt a hand creep from my shoulder, and I laughed. "Hey Amidamaru. How's it going?"

"Ah. Yoh-dono! I can never scare you anymore. You have truly master the art of sense your own spirit." The ghost samurai semi-materialized and started floating next me. "Where are you going today Yoh-dono?"

"I'm just taking a walk, and restocking on our food supply." I squint my eyes up at the sky and just realized that it was starting to take a little long. "Oi! Amidamaru, I gotta go quick before the sun even starts to go down. Say hi to the gang if you see them for me." I jumped off the side of the mountain and started sliding down the rocks. Within a few minutes I was in the forest running down a pathway I created. In half an hour I got all our supplies that'll last us for about a month and start back home.

"Whew! This load is a little heavy today… Or maybe I'm just a little bent out of shape." When I got down the middle of the forest I heard a loud crack with the sound of a falling tree following the sound. I put the sack of food down and went to check out what the heck was going on until I heard another crack, following a horrifying… SPLAT.

I cringed at the sound and got really pissed off. I went through all that trouble so I could bring no food home for dinner tonight?! Oh no, Yohmei-jii chan is gonna go crazy and cranky without his evening tea. I still have some money and some time left. Maybe I could scrape them together to buy a little more stuff. Hopefully my they'll forgive me.

I was about to leave when I heard a hoarse voice go, "See how strong I am girly, you don't have enough strength to compete with me. Just give it up and come with us. I promise to be gentle."

Aside from the ugly ass looking guy, I saw the most beautiful girl in my entire life.

**Author's POV**

Her fierce brown eyes glaring at her aggressor, the golden blonde hair covering half her face. That small black dress hugging her body perfectly and the crimson red scarf hanging from her neck. "Woah." Was all Yoh could say to himself as he was sucked into her beauty.

Yoh was knocked out of the trance when he heard a harsh yet gentle and smooth voice yell, "Let go of me you creep!" Right then she used her free hand and slashed the man across his face leaving three red, visible lines, trailing blood down his cheek.

"You bitch!" He threw her against a tree and her left arm hit the tree hard. She fell to the floor nearly unconscious but then she saw a person come out of nowhere and kicked her torturer's face. Surprise, all she could see was his well toned body as he landed back on the floor and angry, yet gentle brown eyes glared angrily at the man. And right then, the girl fell into unconsciousness.

Yoh had kneed the man in the face with so much force, he had no doubt that he had just shattered the bone in his jaw. As soon as he got back onto the floor he quickly rushed to the aid of the unconscious girl to check up on her. See that she was okay lifted a big weight off his shoulders.

"Hey kid, I found her first. Go find your own girl to play with. She's mine!" Yoh was shocked, but not at the fact that he survived but at why he could still even talk.

Yoh stood up, teeth and hands clenched tightly, eyes going dark and energy building up. He turned around to look at the man but kept starring at the floor. "You're gonna pay for that. Hurting other people when they didn't do anything to you."

"What're you going to do little boy? Hit me? Hah! What a joke. Now run along and let the grown ups finish their work." He reached out to push Yoh aside only to get his hand twisted in a three sixty motion. The man grabbed his arm in pain and feel onto his knees trying to get a hold on himself. He looked up to see Yoh pick up the girl into his arms, thinking that this was his chance for revenge he attempted to kick and trip him.

When he put his plan into motion, right when he almost had him, Yoh had disappeared with the blonde. Wanna be Hulk stood up looking around in a daze, wondering where he could have gone. "Come out you chicken!"

Yoh reappeared right in front of him and continued on with a bright smile, "Have a good trip." And with that with nearly five times as much force than before, Yoh kicked him on the opposite side of his broken jaw sending him flying through, who knows how many, trees.

Yoh watched for a minute, still watching the trees fall, and snapped out of his daze when he felt a warm substance dripping down his arm. He knew it had to be the girl so he quickly rushed to a place at where he could patch her up. Through a trail that Yoh had marked and memorized led them to a medium sized lake. The calm and soothing water glistening at the sun brought a warm sensation to the area. The soft blue color of the lake brought the cool feeling to one's heart. All around were healthy green trees, and grass. Lying in group were different sorts of flowers that spread through the area.

Yoh laid the girl against a tree and found the source of the blood. It wasn't an extremely harmful wound but enough to make her bleed down her arm. He took off his button up shirt and ripped off its sleeves, making one a long strip cloth. He walked to the lake and drooped the other sleeve into the water, enjoying the warm feeling of the water.

He rid her arm of the blood and wrapped the dry cloth around her arm, tied a knot strong enough to keep it on for a while. While cleaning her arm Yoh discovered a silver bracelet with katakana on three plates and two kanji on each. It read ' 恐山　アンナ'. "Kyouyama Anna… Kyouyama. I've heard that somewhere before. Lemme think." Yoh pondered for a minute or two then. "Ah! I remember, the daughter to the head Kyouyama clan. Wow. I didn't I would be able to meet her, more or less see her. Good thing everyone knows where she lives, or is that a bad thing… O well gotta take her back. But just so she doesn't get cold." He draped his torn shirt over her small body hoping that she wouldn't get cold while he took her home.

He picker her up in his arms and less than a second, the lake was alone and quiet once again.

**In town**

Residents in the town all gathered outside to see what on earth was hitting their roof tops. Looking around and asking neighbors what was going while nobody seemed to know.

At the source of the noise lies the culprit Yoh, with Anna in his arms, jumping from roof top to roof top at a lighting speed. Unaware of the ruckus he was causing, he continued to go towards the estate that the Kyouyama clan reside in. A few minutes late Yoh walked up to a big estate holding Anna in his arms. He smiled at her unconscious face and proceeded to the gate.

He walked up to the guards and went, "Excuse me… But I kind of have someone here that you guys might want back." The guards looked at each other and then at Yoh. They squinted their eyes at who he was holding and as shock and surprise came rushing at them, they called upon their shaman spirits and immediately told them to find the Head Kyouyama.

"Um. Wait right here and don't move, someone will be out to tend to you." Once they saw someone rushing to the gate, they quickly opened it for him.

"Anna!" A man in his early late thirties came rushing out.

_Nice outfit. Kick ass red kimono. Crazy white belt… he reminds me of when mom is part timing as a priestess. _Yoh sweatdropped at the thought, and went on walking towards the man. Nervous as heck, Yoh just hoped he wouldn't find out who he was. "Kyouyama-sama. It's an honor to meet you." Yoh bowed down as best he could holding Anna in his arms.

"What on earth happened?" He seemed worried about his daughter, but who wouldn't be?

"Well, I was walking through the woods and then I saw your daughter being attacked by this guy, and I decided to save her I guess. Not that I'm bragging or anything, but I just thought she could use some help getting rid of him." Yoh tried to explain as briefly as he could without getting the wrong idea about him.

"Hm. I'll trust you this once, but do not take advantage of this. Please come in." They walked down the pathway leading up to a large, traditional, Japanese home. Cherry blossom trees occupying the aisle along the walkway. Yoh stared at the yard in awe, especially at the water fountains. He had never seen anything like it, the closest he could get to seeing something spitting water out was when he went to the bathroom.

"This way." They walked down a hallway leading to a sliding door that had a piece of paper labeling 'Anna's Room'. The father pulled out a futon for his daughter and let Yoh set her down. Yoh look at her face one last time before turning away to her father. "How can I ever repay you for saving my daughter?"

Yoh eyes brightened at the thought and smiled widely. "Well you see, before I went to save your daughter my stuff got destroyed and I need-"

"Say no more. Please come with me." He walked out the door and turned left down the hallway.

Yoh walked after him but not before tripping over the table next to him and causing a thump. It wasn't very loud but it was loud enough to stir Anna into waking up. Right when Yoh had recovered from the fall Anna had awoken and saw the back of her savior jogging out the door. When Yoh shut the door, Anna bolted up in her position. By moving to fast Anna discovered a new sting on her arm with a cloth that cover the wound and a torn white shirt in her lap.

Just realizing that he hero had just left she tried hard to get out of her futon to change and chase after him, but she was too sore. Taking it slowly she took off the dirtied black dress and carefully pulled another black dress on, except this one went down to her ankles and split from the sides of her thighs and down. Struggling to just put on the dress she did her best to rush out to find her father, and hopefully her rescuer.

**With Yoh**

"Hai. Here you go. This should be able to cover the expense." He handed Yoh a bag filled with money. The brown haired boy stared at it with awe. "By the way, I never fully introduced myself. My name is Kyouyama Kouhei. I am the head of the Kyouyama clan, and so far the leader of this country."

Yoh snapped out of his daze and smiled cheekily at Kouhei, but then his cheerful smile faltered. "I really can't accept all this money. This is way more than I had to begin with, please take the left-over back."

"No it's fine. You gave up belongings just so you could save my daughter, so please take it." He pushed the bag back into the boy's hands, and Yoh looked at the bag then back at him. His frown turned back onto a smile and said, "Arigatou Kyouyama-san. I should get going now, my grandparents will be mad if I don't hurry back soon. Bye!" Yoh took off down the walkway towards the gate.

"Wait! What's your name boy?"

Yoh stopped in his tracks and turned around and yelled, "It Yoh!" And with that he took off once again.

Kouhei muttered to himself, "There's something about that boy that I just can't really put my finger on. He seems so familiar, resembles someone I used to know… but who." He furiously scratched his head and grumbled. He looked out and Yoh was still jogging down the path almost reaching the gate. Then he heard "Otou-san!".

"Anna! What're you doing out here? You're suppose to be sleeping! Don't tire yourself out too much, you've been through a lot today." Attempting to get her back inside, Anna interrupted.

"Where is he?" Anna was gasping for her breathe since she had run from her room all the way to the front porch, which was no short walk.

"Who? Oh the boy? He's right ther…" The older man pointed his finger at the gate but shockingly he wasn't there. There wasn't a trace of him left, and the gates didn't even seem to have opened the tiniest bit. "That's weird. He was just there no more than a second ago" he murmured.

"Did you get his name?" Finally catching her breath she waited for her father to answer.

"Oh yes I did. He said his name was Yoh."

"Just Yoh? Nothing else? No last name?"

"He didn't tell me." Kouhei saw Anna's excitement fate. "But I'm sure we'll see him again. There's something I need to address you to, but first, why on earth were you in a forest on the opposite side of the town?"

Anna froze.

**Again… With Yoh**

"Whew! I'm finally done, for the second time of the day. If I hurry I can still make it with enough time to sprint up the mountain." _But that girl I met today. She was so beautiful and that fierce attitude. I like that, it's cute. Maybe I'll see her again one day. _

After walking a few miles through the forest he finally reach the base of the mountain. Surprisingly he found his trustworthy Samurai spirit at the pathway up the mountain. His little spirit came flying at him going, "Yoh-dono are you okay?! What happened? Where were you? Did you get hurt? Did you do something stupid again?"

"Hey! I resent that last remark of yours Amidamaru. If I tell you what happened, will you help me get to the top of the mountain?" The spirit attempted to nod his head, only to make Yoh laugh.

Yoh told his spirit the entire story with buying groceries to Anna, to meeting the head of the Kyouyama clan, to him giving him a whole bag of extra money. One would expect another to be excited for each other but for this case it's not so good.

"You met Kyouyama Kouhei?! Yoh-dono, what if he found out who you were! Our country would be in danger and everyone will be after you and your family. You didn't tell him anything right?" the samurai was frantic, floating all around his master.

"Chill Amidamaru. I only told him my first nothing and nothing else, so don't worry so much. I doubt that I'll even see her ever again."

"Her, Yoh-dono?" teased Amidamaru.

"Whah? Nothing. I said them! I didn't say her, why would I be thinking about someone I barely know?" Yoh turned the opposite way, blushing furiously. _But then again, I really do want to see her again…_

"Yoh-dono ready to go up?"

"Huh? Yeah I'm ready!" Amidamaru materialized into his full ghost form and when Yoh touched him, he transfer his furiyoku into Amidamaru making him a physical being able to touch solid objects. Yoh climbed onto his back and hung onto his armor.

It wasn't a long ride up to the top of the mountain, but for some reason Yoh felt that today's trip took longer than usual. Maybe it was because he kept on thinking about a certain blonde hair girl, with brown eyes, and tight body he just wanted to ho- _What the heck am I thinking! I just met her and here I'm going all weird on myself. Get a hold of yourself Yoh, don't let your emotions hinder our goal._

"All right then." They reach the top and Yoh jumped off his back, immediately Amidamaru returned to his spirit ball form and they start to walk into the door. Right when he opened it, his mother attacked him head on, hugging him so tightly that he could barely breathe.

"Mom… Can't… breathe! GAh!"

"Oh I was so worried Yoh! You didn't come back when you said you would and I started to worry so much. I was going to send the entire shaman realm to search for you." The boy sweatdropped at the sight of his mother worry so much over him. It had to admit it was always funny to see her do things with her powers because its usually for completely useless things. Like this time for example. Yoh didn't mind his mother being overprotective or anything, he loved her just as much as she loved him. And so with the rest of his family.

"Yoh, what took you so long?"

The teenage sighed and told them the entire story, without leaving any details out.

"You were lucky enough to get away without the head asking for your last name." His father pointed out the oh-so obvious point. He saw Yoh just daydreaming and not paying any attention to them. Mikihisa looked at his wife, and mother and father. They all smiled at each other knowing that it was _that_ time already.

They left Yoh alone in the living room and walked outside near the mini pond they had built. Outside Yohmei spoke first, "So the time has come. It is only a matter of time before _he_ wakes up. And Yoh isn't even nearly as prepared as he should be. We need to find someone who will train him, way better than we can."

Kino spoke up, "We all know of the prophecy but we have to wait till the time is right. Let the boy choose his own path, and that path will lead us to the one who will train him. Let us just trust the future of the Asakuran clan. Even if it is in the hands of a mere boy."

"But you forget who he is Kino. He is not just a boy. He's OUR grandson, and we've done everything in our power to teach him well. We just have to trust him." The two couples stared at the clear sky and hoped for the best.

Snapping them out of their daze Yoh told them from the door he was going to see his friends and he promised that he'll be back before dinner started.

"Amidamaru! Let's go find Horo and Ren." He jumped off the cliff to land on the rock below and quickly jumping from rock to rock till he finally reached the bottom. Taking off towards the forest he took a few detours and finally found the hangout where all his friends that knew his secret were. He knocked on the door and entered into the room.

There he found the gang all together. Ren, Horo Horo, Pirika, Tamao, Ryou, Lyserg, Jeanne, Faust and Eliza. They weren't a very big group but enough for everyone to keep each other entertained. But even if he did find the gang all together, he saw the most awkward and embarrassing thing ever.

He had just walked in on all the couples making out and Ryou sitting in the front holding a ghost timer that had how many minutes they were lasting. Yoh nervously chuckled at the sight and just let them continue what they were doing, obviously too absorbed in each other to even care that they were apparently have a contest.

"Yoh-dono!' Ryou went up to him and gave him a bone crushing hug. The man with the funny hair was what Yoh used to call him but now that he has a name they were finally on first name basis. The rest of the group heard the name Yoh and immediately stopped what they were doing. Everyone was panting and out of breathe, the sight made Yoh feel a little jealous that everyone had a special someone except for him.

He was just waiting for the right girl to come along and slap him into his place. "So we going to get working or are you going to sit around and suck each other's faces out?" Yoh smiled innocently at them.

They all looked at each other and bursted out laughing. Horo Horo came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, "Yeah, let's get to work."

**Kyouyama Estate**

"What?! You're not serious are you dad?! I don't need a body guard!" Anna slammed her hand on the table.

"Anna don't be so stubborn! If the boy weren't there to save you what would've happened to you? You could've been killed!" Kouhei tried to persuade her only to be rejected several times, yet he kept trying.

"Well I'm not dead yet am I! Trust me dad I can take care of myself, I don't need a bodyguard." She was prepared to walk out the door when he brought _him_ up.

"What if I were to tell you, that I'll find that boy that saved you that day, and make him your bodyguard. What would you say about that?" He used the ultimate trap on her. He knew clearly that she would go to any extent to find him again.

"Fine. But only for a little while. I need to repay him for saving me, I don't like be in debt to other people."

"Great! I'll send out the news soon. It's bound to get to him before the day ends, unless he's somewhere we can't find him." His defense weakened and Anna went in for the kill.

"I'm not allowing anyone else but him be my bodyguard. And if its not him, I'll get the bodyguard you hired and burn him alive. Understood father?" Anna asked menacingly.

"Okay… I got it" Chills crawled up the spine of the Head of the Kyouyama clan, by just the mere word of his own daughter. He knew she wasn't joking about this, she really wanted to find him. _I can't believe he's had such an effect on her. Took her months to even open up to the maids and this boy just swoops and carries off her feet and made her fall desperately within a day! That has definitely got to be a record. _Kouhei thought to himself.

"Well? What you just sitting there for? Hurry up! I'm going out for another walk." She saw him protest but before he could she said to him reassuringly, "I'll be more careful this time. I promise you I won't get into any trouble." Without another word she was out the door and to the gate.

"That guy. Who on earth is he? He didn't even have to try to kick that guy and he went flying. I swear if it's the last thing I do I'm going to find him." Anna walked for a half an hour, all the way across town and finally reached the forest.

She reached down to rub her ankles from the soreness of walking too much. Wandering into the forest she started to walk around, letting her feet take control, for another 20 minutes she was led to a semi large house. It wasn't too plain nor was it filled with exciting and clashing colors, but it was just simple enough for someone to live there peacefully.

Assuming that no one lived there because it was quiet and the house the looked abandoned, she started to walk around the house. She got to the backyard and was amazed by the scenery. There was a pond with some fish in the middle of the area, many trees surrounding the place to give it a very soothing feeling.

Anna took a walk around the pond looking at all the different colored fishes, admiring the scenery around her. She took a deeper walking into the back forest and for a few more minutes she found an isolated area. No trees or flowers, just the sunlight and an extremely large tree in the middle of nowhere.

"Ah!" From out of no where, a gust of wind shot out suddenly, blowing away Anna's scarf from her neck. Running after it she tried to catch it, yet as she tried getting closer it flew up higher and higher. In no time her red scarf was hanging high up on a branch upon the tree.

She stared up at the hanging red cloth, knowing that there was no way she could even reach it. She circled around the tree twice, thinking about a way to get up the tree. Finally she stopped walking in circles and walked to a tree, sat down and leaned against a tree. _I'll just close my eyes for a bit_.

Little by little Anna's eyes lids felt heavier each second. In less than a minute Anna was completely asleep.

In a distance there was a distinct laughing made by Yoh and his friends. They were all sparring with each other at first but then sparring became to just childish fighting. Then just fighting came to tickling and then they all starting just joking around and laughing on the ground. It took them about an hour to even start to relax more or less to stop laughing.

"You know, I think we should go home you guys. It's getting late." Yoh chuckled while scratching the back of his head.

"Yoh! You silly bird brain! It's only like four." The pink haired girl made fun of Yoh. (A/N: Silly bird brain? Who says stuff like that?! Apparently Tamao does… And I don't know if they had clocks or could tell time back then. But in this they can)

"Tamao, bird brain needs to train. Can't always be playing around with us. We'll come see you another day. Bye bye!" The blue haired shaman put his arm around the blushing pink girl.

"Hurry retard, we better hurry. I want to catch that new Chinese restaurant before there's too many people. Let's go Pirika." The Chinese boy walked away with his arm wrapped around Pirika's waist.

"Shark boy, you better get your hand off my sister!" Horo Horo ran after Ren, yelling at each other. The rest of the gang left laughing at the two immature teenagers.

At a distance Yoh stared worryingly at his friends, and decided to shrug it off. He started to walk the opposite way. The sun wasn't down yet so he just decided to take his time and walk home.

"Ah! Free day, no training, just one full day of fun! If only…" He reached the place where he supposed was the most important spot in the forest, assuming that the reason the big tree was there for a reason. "How's my favorite tree today. Hah?" There was a crimson red cloth tangled to a branch. He was going to leave it alone but once again a black dress caught his eyes.

Shocked, he saw the same exact girl he encountered a few hours earlier. He got close to her and got on knees and got closer and closer and…

Anna's eyes popped open and shoved him off. "Who the hell are you? Trying to take advantage of me, well just to let you know! I'm tougher than I look!" But she soon trailed off seeing to who the guy actually was. "You're from, that time. You're the one that saved me."

They stared at each other for who knows how long, then Yoh, just realized what was happening, got up blushing and looking away from her. "Um. What're you doing here in the forest? No one's here this time around." Remembering his manners he held out a hand to help her up.

Right when she touched his hands, Anna felt a tingling feeling go up her arm and down her body. Hesitating she grab his hand tightly and let him lift her up. "My scarf got stuck up in the tree, and since I can't even get up there I just thought I would wait for it fly down I guess." Anna knew it was a stupid idea but she had no other option.

"Want me to help you get it?" Anna stared at him as if he was crazy, but she shrugged it off. As long as she got it back.

"Will you?" Yoh nodded his head with a boyish smile on his face. "Wait what're you doing you idiot?!"

Yoh swept her off her feet and into his arms, unaffected by her slapping, he walked closer to where her scarf was. "What're you doing! Put me down now!"

Without another from Yoh he was right under the branch her scarf was hanging on. Anna felt a rush of wind and shut her eyes closed. Immediately she opened her eyes when she felt that it was safe. Shocked she found her on top of the tree where he scarf had lied.

Surprisingly the branch was no small or flimsy little stick. Where she was standing right then, the 'branch' was thick enough to let three people to stand side by side with plenty of space for them sit down.

Yoh set her down and making sure that she wasn't going to fall let her go. "Um. What am I doing here?"

"You asked me to help you get your scarf, so here we are." Anna stared at him as if he were crazy. "What's wrong? Aren't you gonna go get your scarf?"

"I thought you were going to get it for me. Not, I go by myself."

"Since you're here already, might as well." Yoh shrugged and stared at her with a grin on his face.

"Fine." Anna started to walk down the branch careful of not to slip. She looked over her shoulder and saw the boy staring at her.

Caught off guard Anna lost her balance, and fell off. Yoh quickly recovered from daydreaming and quickly landed on the floor. He slid out to catch her, scraping his back on the floor. Right when he caught her, she landed on top of him, cushioning her fall.

They stared at each other for a minute, frozen right on the spot. Quickly realizing they both got up and off each other, looking the opposite way. "Eheh. M-maybe I sho-should have gotten it back for you." Yoh stuttered.

"Yeah." Anna put a hand against her heart feeling it go a hundred miles a minute. She turned around and asked, "Could you?" with pleading eyes.

All Yoh did was smile, bent his knees a little bit and sprung up to the tree contain her scarf. He quickly untied the tangled scarf, releasing it from the tree, he held it tightly in his hands and went back to Anna's side.

"Sorry about letting you go by yourself." Yoh scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "By the way, I never introduced myself. My name is Yoh. What's yours?"

"I'm pretty sure you know who I am. My name is Kyouyama Anna, the daughter of the leader of the Kyouyama clan."

"That was pretty straight forward. And yeah, I know who you are, I saw the bracelet on your hand when I found you earlier."

"Oh yeah. You were the one at the time."

"So, what were doing in the forest, with no bodyguard? I mean I doubt your dad would let you out here without protection. Especially when you're so important to the clan."

"I was just curious, I've never been to this side of the town, and then I saw a forest so I'd thought I would do a little exploring. Then I found out this weirdo was following me, and I think you know what happened after that." Anna tried to explain as briefly as she could.

"Well, now you know how dangerous it's out here. You should probably go home, it does take a while to walk back." He saw her stare at the setting sun, wanting to spend more time with her he had an idea.

"Uh, how bout I walk you home, since you know, it's dangerous out there."

Anna looked at Yoh suspiciously, but nodded slowly, agreeing to his offer. "So how do we get out of this place."

"Well, first we start walking." Yoh pointed the obvious out.

Anna rolled her eyes and started walking the way she remembered. "Hey Anna, where you going?"

"Back to where I came from you smart ass! Jerk!"

"Woa woa! Hey I didn't mean anything offensive. I was just joking around, com'on just lemme walk you home."

After a few minutes of pleading Anna gave in and agreed to his suggestion. "The way backs this way, come on." He walked ahead of her and just assumed that she was following him.

Trying to start up a conversation after 20 minutes of silence Yoh spoke up. "So. Um… Daughter of Kyouyama Kouhei huh? That's pretty cool to have such a powerful and rich dad right?"

"Not really. He's never home to eat dinner with me, always busy even when he's suppose to have the day off, business trips, important meetings. I never get to have time with him, and when I want to have time alone, I go out and guess what! Everyone is ALWAYS staring at me and whispering about me behind my back. I never get someone who'll see me for who I actually am." Anna lost her temper for a second but then regained her cool.

"It's alright. I mean you just have to learn to deal with it right? For me I would want to see how it is to live a life of luxury. All my life its been me to go out and buy food, do all the shopping, collecting money, going places to run errands, training as a shaman and-"

"YOU'RE a SHAMAN?! You mean as in shaman that can see spirits and ghosts and stuff right?" Anna cut him off and went right into his face to ask questions.

Scared, he slowly nodded his head. He saw Anna turn around and started to mutter incoherently. "Uh. Anna, is everything okay?"

She sharply turned around and looked him right in the eye, and all up in his face, noses barely touching. "So that's why you could beat that guy without breaking a sweat. You're like thirty times stronger than them! Why didn't you tell me sooner!"

"Uh. You didn't ask?" He saw Anna grumble and throw a tantrum but overall he thought it was pretty cute. The determined look on her face was pretty funny too. _Wait. Determined?! For what?!_

"Hurry up and take me back home. I need to talk to my dad."

"In case you haven't noticed Anna, we are _home_. We've been back since you started to yell me." Anna glared at him. She took his hand, ordered the guard to open the gate, and quickly ran inside to look for her father.

After a minute of pondering around, she found him in the main living room. Anna made Yoh sit on the floor while she started to talk to her dad. "Dad did you know he's a SHAMAN?"

Shocked, he quickly recovered and went on. "Yoh I have a request of you. Think of it like a job, would you consider being Anna's bodyguard?"

"Bodyguard? You mean like protect her right?"

"Yes. Of course you'll have to live here and listen to Anna's requests. Most importantly go where she goes and protect her when she needs to be." Kouhei explained to him the position and what and what does not get to do.

Yoh sat there thinking for a while. _If I do, do this, I would have to leave tou-san and them to fend for themselves. Whose gonna buy their stuff, their food and all that other stuff, and make sure nothing happens while I'm gone?_ "I'm going to have to think about it. I need to talk to my parents about it, so I'll get back to you on that." Yoh got up and slowly walked out the door.

Kouhei turned to Anna just to see her staring at the closed door Yoh just walked through. "Anna, do you like him?" Shocked Anna retaliated.

"No way! Who would like that guy! I'm going to go talk him into staying." She ran out after him and reached him before he really left.

When she caught up to him he was just standing there in the middle of the road. Sensing her presence he began to speak, " You know, ever since I was a kid, my parents expected a lot out of me. My grandparents depended on me more than my parent did. I had training for almost five hours a day, I was home-schooled, depended upon to buy food and run errands. I didn't understand why they had me do such things when I was a kid, I was always complaining. But they said someday all my training would pay off. Until then I was still complaining, when I hit fourteen they told me something I never thought would happen. Until then, I worked even harder since I knew the truth, I would avenge my clan and restore my family's honor no matter what. So I'm not really certain that I can do like another job when I have my own mission to complete. I _will_ talk to my parents about it but I can't guarantee you that I'm allow. I'll get back to you as soon as I get an answer, for the mean time just wait. Will you?"

Anna was shocked at his explanation, she never knew that he had such a troubled childhood. Even now his entire family depends on him. She slowly nodded and walked closer to him looking down.

Yoh could see some red on her face and asked, "Anna are you okay? Your face is kinda red." Suddenly he felt something soft against his cheek, shocked as he was, he just stood there watching Anna's retreating back. She then suddenly stopped and turned around with a blushing face.

"I'll be waiting for your answer, and don't take this the wrong way. I was just saying thank you for the save earlier." And with that she left back to her house.

For a period of time Yoh was still standing there, he put a hand on his cheek, and smiled. Quickly he rushed home wanting eagerly to talk to his parents.

Going fast and jumping from roof top to roof top, the tree to tree. And you get the point with the mountains. Once he got home he rushed to the living room, "Tou-san, Kaa-san! I need to talk to you."

Yoh explained the entire situation to everyone in his family. They listened quietly to him tell his story quietly. "Please consider of letting do this!"

"Go out for a second Yoh." Mikihisa waved him out. "What should we do?"

"I think it would be a good idea." Miyako announced.

"We've taught him everything know. He's strong enough to take both you and I on Mikihisa." Youmei agreed with his daughter. (A/N in-law? I'm not sure) "Kino? What do you think?"

All three members of the remaining Asakuran clan stared at the old woman sipping her tea, waiting for an answer. She spoke, "Yoh, come in here." Yoh slid the door opened and walked in. Kino continued, "Do you know who Kyouyama Anna really is? I've heard from various rumors from the spirits that say about eighteen years ago when we were to fight the Fire country, there was a surge of energy that spread of to people of this country. Ones that couldn't handle it only lasted two maybe three months after they received the energy. The reason they die is because they are all just regular humans, unlike us shamans and itakos, they have no way of releasing that energy. All I know for sure there was one that survived. The mother of Kyouyama Anna, she wasn't a shaman nor a itako, but her husband was. Because at the time she was still pregnant, a lot of the energy was transfer to girl, which saved her from a quick death."

They all sat down listening to Kino quietly, " It was almost eight months after our clan had sealed the fire spirit and Anna was born. She is one of the only ones who survived the great energy surge, and I bet you wonder why she's alive. No she is not a shaman, but an itako. A very strong-willed and powerful one at that, this is why I will let you go. You don't have to worry about us, we'll find a way to get things, or we could just ask your dear friends."

"Arigatou gozaimasu Kino-baa chan! I'm gonna go give Anna the good news!" Yoh thanked them excitedly but was stopped by his mother.

"Yoh I think you should take some stuff with you. Just go now, we'll be fine." Putting a bright smile on his face, he went to kiss his mother and grandma on the cheek, and hugged his dad and grandpa. Without another word Yoh left. Right when he left everyone turned to Kino.

"What's the real reason kaa-san?" Her son questioned her and looked at her funny.

"Why that is the real reason son. But there is more to it. Not only is she a very strong itako, I know very well from the spirits that she wants to marry someone who eligible to make her the Shaman Queen. Since we've been aiming for the Shaman King title against Yoh's twin brother, it's the perfect choice. I'm very sure she'll train him to become much stronger, and besides, he has motivation now."

Everyone nodded in understanding what she just said. In their hearts, they hoped this plan will work. The future of the Wind country depends on it.

Yoh finally finished packing and told his parents and grandparents that he was going to leave. He didn't bring much with him except that of several sets of clothes that had to be washed at least once a week.

Eagerly, Yoh couldn't wait to tell Anna the good news so he started to sprint as fast as he could, and when he arrived he asked the guards to let him in to speak to Anna. Recognizing him they opened the gate and let him through.

_Maybe I should do a little wandering before I go find Anna. Yeah, I think I'll do that._ Before reaching the front porch he took a turn to the back without having to cut all he hallways.

When he got there he found a beautiful tree standing in the middle of the backyard, surrounded by other trees. He spoke to himself, "This kinda looks like the one back at the forest. The one where I found Anna, I think I'm starting to like big trees." He walked towards it and found a rope type of ladder hanging down. He looked up and not to his surprise he found Anna up there sleeping.

To himself he whispered, "Yep, I'm definitely starting to like big trees." Without using a ladder, he quietly jumped onto the branch Anna was sitting on. He stared at her for a moment, taking all her beauty. The way her chest moved up and down slowly as she breathed. The light bluish glow the moon gave off and hitting her radiant skin. The way her lips parted as she slept.

Yoh smiled at her cuteness, but not wanting her to freak out like last time, he softly whispered her name, "Anna, wake up. If you stay out here too long you'll catch a cold." He put a hand on her shoulder.

Feeling a warm touch on her shoulder, Anna opened her eyes and used her fist to rub her eyes. Squinting at the face in front of her, she finally focused on who he was.

A little too close for comfort Anna freak and fell off… again. This time Yoh was prepared and before she even got near the ground, he already had her in his arms. "You have really got to stop doing that. I don't need to save you from these fake dangers you know."

Embarrassed at the situation she retorted, "Well, I was just testing you to see if you were ready." He set her down while she continued, "Let's go see my dad. I want to let him know you accepted, and we need to find you a room to stay in."

She dragged him by his hand and quickly walked towards the house. She went straight to what he remembered as the living room and slammed the door open. She saw her father look up and watched him speak up, "Yoh, your back! That was fast though, not even an hour and you made it back. That's a shaman for you."

"Cut the crap dad, and lets get back to the point here. Where is he going to stay?" Anna let her father ponder for a minute.

"Well, right now all the rooms are occupied by the maids and workers in the North Wing. And the South wing there are only five rooms. Lets see, one room for the living room, One room is mine, _her _room, Anna's room, and the only one left is the guest room. But that's right next to Anna's. Is that okay with you?" They both stared at Anna.

"It's fine with me, I don't really care. Besides if I'm attacked he could come over faster. Let's go Yoh." Once again she dragged him by the arm, and towards her room.

"I definitely think there is something very familiar about him. But I just can't remember." Kouhei brushed the thought away and just continued sipping his tea.

Down the hall and to the right was where Anna and Yoh where. "This is your room. It's smaller than the rest but I think you'll be comfortable here."

Yoh sweatdropped at the word 'small'. It was far from small, it was probably the same size as his kitchen, living room, bathroom combined!

"Uh sure… Small." Anna was about to leave when Yoh interrupted, "Can I know where the bathroom is? I need to take a shower, I smell like sweat."

"Yeah, its right across the hall. No one will interrupt you cause no one but us are on this side of the house. So you don't have to worry about someone barging in. We share the same bathroom, my dad has his own separate one. And I warn you, if I catch you peeking, I'll kill you."

"I won't! I swear on the Asaku- I mean my life!" Anna looked at him suspiciously and walked back towards her room.

"Yoh went back to his room and grabbed a towel, and on the way back he thought, _That was a close one. I almost blurted out our own secret. Anyways I should wash my shirt first. Or else it won't have time to dry._

He stripped off his own clothes and washed his body first. Wrapping a towel around his waist he walked to the outdoor onsen and slipped in. He soaked for at least ten minutes before coming out.

"Shoot!" Just realizing that he forgot his sleep clothes in his room he quickly pulled on his pants. He slowly slid the door and quietly tried to sneak back to his own room.

Unfortunately Anna heard him come out and needing to use the bathroom she rushed out the door quickly and bumped into, a still wet, Yoh. Both falling down Anna had more time to recover but for Yoh, his reaction was a little slow since his mind was on getting back to his room to change.

Anna leaned up and rubbed her back a little, looking for the source of what she hit, all she saw was a hot and well toned body lying on the floor still kind of wet. When she saw him get up, his lean muscles were very visible and clear as he moved. Blushing madly, Anna scrambled back into her room and slid the door closed before he could notice.

Yoh rubbed his head and went, "What the heck was that. Felt like I bumped into someone, couldn't be Anna cause she was in her room. Ahhh." Yoh yawned and brushed it off. He prepared everything before he went to bed. He was prepared to go and ask Anna what time he should wake up but he was certain that she would be asleep by now. And the last thing on his mind was of nothing but the one and only Kyouyama Anna.

In Anna's room about a minute after they crashed into each other, Anna was still holding her thumping heart, pounding like crazy Anna asked herself, _What's this feeling. I can't stop it! My chest feels so weird. Yoh, what're you doing to me._ And without another word Anna fell asleep without getting ready for bed or anything. All she did was lie on the floor of where she sat.

Yoh woke up all of a sudden, decided to check up on Anna and see if she's doing okay. He knew it was stupid to do such a thing, but he couldn't help it. Getting out of his futon, walked out his door and stood in front of Anna's. Careful not to make a sound he gently slid the door open. He looked around to see if she was sleeping, but instead he sees her just lying on the floor next to the side window door.

Yoh smiled a little and went up to her. _Can't believe she fell asleep here of all places. The doors open and its cold outside… Does she want to get sick? _Walking to the corner to get her futon ready he set everything into place. He picked her up into his arms, and gently place her on the futon. He bent down next to her ear and whispered, "Oyasumi nasai, Anna." With that he brushed his lips against her forehead and left.

Without Anna waking up and throwing a tantrum, all that came out of her mouth was a simple, "Oyasumi… Yoh." And with that she snuggled into her warm blanket and fell into an even deeper sleep.

**TSUZUKU!**

OMG finally first chapter done! If you guys didn't read it too detaily I understand. I'm not sure why I wrote it so long, this chapter took me like 3 days to write. T-T couldn't think of anything and I didn't want Anna to be so nice. I'm planning on mking her Hard core next chapter.

What's to come! Here's a preview for you guys who want a taste of the next chapter.

Anna reveals to Yoh about what she wants him to become. So she starts his intensive training. There will be more YohxAnna in the next chapter, and maybe soon there will be a **LEMON** for all you pervs out there. I've never written one super detaily, so I wanna start with this fanfic. If you guys review enough for every 10 reviews I'll make a lemon so R&R. If you don't want one… I'll warn you guys and you can skip it. But still R&R please.

From Aimless

PS- If you guys can figure out the name that comes from **Aimless** then i promise to update in two weeks. Hey what do you expect! I have finals this week.


	2. Dreams and a History lesson

Disclaimer: I don't own shaman king…

I'm back. Sorry it took so long you guys… one year to re inspire me after I lost the copy of chapter two on my other computer. Just recently I felt compelled enough to continue on with the story. Maybe you guys may have liked the other one, but that one is gone and now I have to start over on chapter two. So I hope this is better than the other one: D

BTW I will use Japanese names and English translations interchangeably because I always get confused. So just to be sure that you guys know, like tou-san and kaa-san, I may use mom and dad occasionally.

Also please try to correct me on my blunders on Shaman King background. For example I didn't know that a lot of the itakos are supposed to be blind, but Kouhei needed to be a itako and have vision at the same time. I never really watched the entire series, but I know basically what happens :D So please excuse moi.

Summary: During the Shaman era, the Asakura Clan was said to have disappeared due to trying to stop a deathly fate upon their country. For years their country has honored the clan and their success, but 10 years have passed and they have already been nothing but a legend and a myth. The Kyouyama Clan has been appointed to run the country, and the head of the clan's daughter is a strong itako. After an attack upon her, a boy had saved her and the head appointed him as her bodyguard for the time being. Something lies within their path that is blocking them from crossing… but what?

**Fight for the Shaman Queen**

**Dreams and a History Lesson**

**~Someone's POV~**

_I ran through the crowd, pushing and shoving to get to the front. Nearly out of breath, I barely made it out of the bustling people starring up ahead into the barren land that merged into a forest._

_My chest burned with a pained sensation, throat was as dry as the air around me, and I felt as if my legs would give out on me right at that moment. _

_But I still couldn't give up, picking up my weakened legs I bustled through the forest, thrashing away all the branches and leaves in my way. I went as fast as my body could endure._

_The farther I went in, more and more ash flew into my eyes and burned my throat. Reaching the origin of all the chaos I looked up. Starring in horror I faced my worst nightmare._

_I couldn't make out who he was since he was floating in mid air. All I could make out was his long brown hair and the cloak the settled on his shoulders._

_I wanted to scream something out. My mouth moved but no words came out. _

_Peering closer at the figure I could barely make out another body. He seemed familiar, but never came to mind. _

_The dominating figure clenched his hand around his neck as he descended from the air back onto solid land. _

_That was when he did it. The boy with the long hair stuck his glove inside the boy's chest and immediately my stomach clenched at the sight. _

_I feel myself screaming but I hear no words. Running closer, trying to get him to stop, but he didn't. Soon it was too late._

_The body dropped onto the floor, eyes as soulless as can be. I see his lips move, speaking my name, then he paused and his hand went limp._

_The other stood over his body, looking cynical at the boy on the floor, and without any hint of mercy, he held out his hand and a spark appeared._

_Within a second it burst out and-_

"_Noooo-"_

**Author's POV**

"oooo!!!!"

"Anna!" Yoh burst through the door in concern, "What happened?!"

As Yoh looked around the room for any suspicious activity or object, Anna sat there in shock and fatigue. Her breath was shortened, her hair and body was nearly soaked with sweat. Pupils dilated, shortness of breath, Anna could barely even process the fact that Yoh was in her room looking for the wrong things.

After making sure everything was all right, he finally noticed Anna's stance. He kneeled by her futon "Are you okay? Your face is a little red…" putting a hand on her head, immediately he retracted his hand, "Anna you're burning up! Why didn't you say anything?" Scrambling to his feet, he soon went out the door and towards the kitchen.

When he came back, in his hands held a bowl of ice water with a couple towels. Dipping his hands into the water, he soaked the towel with water and squeezed it out. By now Anna felt lightheaded and lied back down, oblivious to her surroundings. Yoh wiped her face and her neck gently, and re-rinsed the towel. Soon after he laid the towel on her forehead, hoping to cool her fever down.

And so there he sat, quietly next to Anna's futon making sure nothing else would.

Occasionally he would get up to change Anna's towel, but other than that, there was not much to do.

The room was dark with the exception of the moonlight shining through the shoji paper of the door. He walked over to open the paper door so some cool air could come in, but immediately Yoh felt something weird in his chest as he breathed the cool air in.

Yoh sat back down and slowly his eyes started to droop down but he quickly shook his head and spoke quietly to himself, "Come on Yoh. Stay awake!" Yawn after yawn, rub after rub, the young teen just couldn't take it anymore. His eyes were wet after the countless yawns, his eyes lids felt as if someone were trying to force it down, and most of all he was so bored to the extent of counting two thousand sheep's in his mind.

He dragged the table in Anna's room nearby and stacked the now room-temperature water on the table. Then it was his turn to put his head on the table. Using his arms as a cushion within a few minutes, Yoh was fast asleep.

_**Dream Sequence**_

_I opened my eyes slowly. Squinting and getting used to the brightness of my surroundings I began to see the bright blue sky._

_The all of a sudden a large silhouette hovered over me. I tried desperately to make out his face, but it remained as dark as night. _

_I wanted to speak, but no words came out, I needed to move but my arms wouldn't budge. I basically sat there like a doll waiting for my fate to come._

_And soon it came, the figure reached out his gloved hand wrapping it around something._

_He clenched and right then I struggled to breath. I felt my hand surface to try and pry them from my neck._

_Struggling with all my might, I tried to wiggle out of his death grip on my neck. _

_Soon I felt the gravity change and we were near the ground. My knees hit the rock hard surface, and by now I was feeling dizzy and faint._

_My breath grew shallow, almost till the point of short gasps. I didn't have the strength to retaliate anymore, but I continued to struggle. Something just drove me to fight on._

_But fighting on wasn't good enough at this point anymore. With my eyes barely open, they shifted down to see his other hand move under my vision._

_I couldn't see what his actions were but I was pretty sure they weren't good. I waited for the worst and for a second I thought that nothing was going to happen. That someone had already stopped him._

_But I was wrong. Within a second of that thought, there emerged an excruciating pain in my chest. As if someone were ripping it open to retrieve something._

_My throat was hoarse and my mouth opened to scream out loud. The pain from my throat was there, but there was no sound coming from the origin. _

_I tried to scream at the hand that was in my chest, trying to scream my way out of pain. I hoped that it would stop soon, hoping that I could just die at that moment. It was almost like someone was ripping my heart from my chest, but just had a hard time finding it so they decided to shuffle around and screw with all my other internal organs._

_At this point I had lost all my strength, along with my will to fight. The figure had removed his hand from my neck only to grab my shirt. My head fell downwards at the lack of strength and I could barely even keep my eyes open to see what the guy was grabbing._

_I could barely make it out. The hand was right in the middle of my entire torso, it seemed as if they had found what they were looking for. _

_Closing my eyes for just a second, I needed a break from this entire event. But that wasn't even the end, the figure rips something out from my midsection and my eyes go wide, barely able to process what was going on._

_Everything after that seemed to be in slow motion. I fell to the ground, flat on my back, not even able to move a single budge. Literally all my strength had gone from my body, muscles, and mind. _

_My vision began to blur, and my heart started to slow down. Turning my heads sideways, I saw a blurred vision of a person in a black dress. All I could make out was the black, red and yellow. _

_Then… it was pitch black._

_**~Dream Sequence End~**_

The morning sun rose, and so did a certain boy's eyes.

Yoh's eyes shot open and quickly he sat up to clutch the side of his head. Within every second his head began to pound over and over, as if someone were using a hammer to bang his head.

Taking a small break for a few minutes, he rejoiced himself and attempted to get out without making such a ruckus.

Before taking action he looked over his shoulder to find the blond sleeping peacefully. Or so it seems.

The towel she was using had slipped off her forehead, onto the pillow. Moving over to her side, Yoh took the towel away, setting it back in the cool water.

Using the back of his hand he measured her temperature to make sure she was fine before he left the room.

Slowly getting back onto his feet, he picked up the bowl of water, slid the door open and walked out. Outside in the kitchen he met Kouhei at the living room table sipping his tea slowly. Noticing Yoh walking in he started up a conversation, "Good morning Yoh."

"Ohayo Kyouyama-sama." Yoh replied using his cute Japanese accent.

"Please Yoh. Just call me Kouhei. Kyouyama-sama… makes me sound a little old." The older man gave him a gentle smile, almost reassuring him that it is okay for him to refer him as Kouhei.

Yoh stood there feeling a bit awkward but he continued on, "Okay… Kouhei-san." Returning a cheeky smile to the man.

"By the way Yoh, why are you carrying that bucket of water?"

"Oh. Anna had a bit of a fever last night, so I got some ice water to cool her down. She's fine now."

Kouhei was impressed that he took care of his daughter so he brought up a new point, "You could have just contacted the doctor or notified me."

"It was really late that night and it wasn't that much of a big deal for me to take care of her. All I had to do was cool her body temperature down and that's it."

Kouhei waited for him to finish and to his amusement, he found it quite reassuring that he had such a responsible young man looking after his daughter. "Well then, Yoh. I must insist you join me for breakfast. I had the cook make something for your arrival this morning."

Almost as if on cue the kitchen man came out holding a couple small trays. Setting it in front of Yoh and after saying "Itadakimasu!" Yoh nearly devoured everything in sight before Kouhei could even pick up his own chopsticks.

"Yoh, my boy. Calm down. It's not going anywhere." By then Yoh had already stuffed everything into his face, swallowing it all in one bite.

The man sweat-dropped at his manners, and in return Yoh provided a cheeky boyish smile.

Before Kouhei even got started Yoh began cleaning up and placed the dishes in the sink. The teenage boy popped his head from the corner and presented a question for Kouhei to answer, "Hey um… Kouhei-san do you think it's all right for me to go visit my parents today? I have something I need to tell them."

"It's no problem. Go any time, who am I to hold you back from your family."

"Thanks Kouhei-san. Uh…" Yoh stalled for a second's time before continuing, "Do you think you can tell Anna for me? I may be for a couple hours and its almost noon."

"No problem. Go ahead and take your time. I'll make sure she doesn't go anywhere today."

The brown haired boy smiled in gratitude, and left out the side door.

"That boy is a mystery." Kouhei chuckled to himself as he continued to sip his tea.

Outside Yoh called upon Amidamaru to come out, and within a couple seconds there floated the six hundred-year-old samurai, awaiting his orders. "What's wrong Yoh-dono?"

"Gotta go back home to pick up some stuff. Ehehe I left my sword there too." He stuck his tongue out laughing at his blunder.

The silver haired samurai gave Yoh a sigh of disappointment at his obvious mistake. "Shall we go back now, Yoh-dono?"

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I need to talk about stuff with kaa-chan and tou-san." _That dream…it's happening so much. I've seen it so many times, but I don't even know what it's supposed to mean._ Yoh gritted his teeth together and clenched his jaw at the thought of the dream. He took a deep breath and brushed off the thought of the reoccurrence and walked off with Amidamaru towards his home.

Twenty minutes passed and Yoh had finally reached the town after walking through the off road from the estate.

"Ano… Yoh-dono. Why are we walking back home? Couldn't we just fly there on my back?"

"I gotta pick up some stuff for kaa-chan at the safe house. She told me when I come back to visit to drop by the area. Since we have nothing to do today, might as well take our time."

"As expected of Yoh-dono. Always stalling for time." Amidamaru said accordingly.

"You make me sound lazy. I just like taking my time. No need to rush life." Some people on the side lines stared at Yoh weirdly due to the fact he was talking to nothing but air. Ignoring them, Yoh walked passed the grocery stores, banks, and other stores, until he got to the storage building.

This place was the only place where the owner knew of the whereabouts of the Asakura clan, who they are, where they resided. Opening the door, the boy's sandals clacked about the wooden floor and walked up to the front desk. "Excuse me, but I need to see Nagasuka Ryousuke-san. Someone mentioned something yesterday about me coming to pick something up?"

While he was waiting, the receptionist flipped through her little notebook of appointments, "Ah. Here it is. Go right ahead, through that door on your left. Then turn right through the second door and his room should be the farthest from the door you enter."

"Arigatou." Stepping into the creaky hallway, Yoh followed her instructions. Step by step, the floor creaked eerily, and soon he was in front of Ryousuke's office. Knocking on the door, he awaited the man's answer. There emerged a muffled 'come in' from inside and Yoh entered the premises.

The room was clean and tidy. There was not one piece of paper out of place, not one book that wasn't alphabetized on the shelf, not one picture of its side. Everything was nearly perfect, except for one tiny minor discrepancy. Yoh had already noticed it right away. The table in the top middle section of the room was slightly moved. Yoh's eyes immediately scanned the room and saw the table out of place. The carpet's indentation was clearly visible but only by a tiny bit.

"Ah! Yoh-kun, we meet again." A man of nearly forty years old turned around greeting the young boy with a sincere smile.

"What's up Ryousuke-san." The brown hair boy gave the older man a cheeky smile.

"Are you here to pick up the package?"

"Yep."

"Let us go get it." Before he did anything, Ryousukewent behind Yoh and closed the door. On the door there were nearly five different kinds of locks, with a metal gate on the back, covered with another solid metal bar.

_Wow talk about heavy security. _Yoh walked after Ryousukeas he went to his bookshelf. Looking for about a minute something finally caught Ryousuke's eyes.

"Here it is." Reaching up towards the old brown book, and took it down. Almost immediately something behind them started to move. Yoh looked over his shoulder to see where the table was, only to see that it was gone from sight.

"Wow…" Without another word, Ryousukeled Yoh down the stairs. Amidamaru tried to follow but when he floated down the floor, all he faced was an invisible wall that prevented him from continuing down.

"Oh, that's right" the man remembered. "Amidamaru will have to stay outside since only concrete things and beings are able to go through the barrier. Sorry Amidamaru." Ryousukeapologized to the soul.

"It's alright. I'll just wait out here and try to stand guard."

Yoh thanked his guardian and went down the stairs. They descended for at least five minutes and they were nearly at the bottom. When they reach the base of the stairs Yoh saw a never-ending hallway of encrypted doorways. Staring in amazement Yoh began to study the encryptions, but really he was only looking at the pretty lines.

"Come Yoh." With those two words, he followed him deeper into the hallways and onto a platform. Slowly before Yoh could even catch his ground, the platform began rise and move.

"Woah!" The boy fell onto his knees and clutched the ground as they speeded nearly a hundred miles per hour. Zooming past each door one by one. Yoh's hair flew in his face as he stared forward, eyes wide open and dry, he could barely keep his eyes open.

His eyes, tired and dry, took one tiny blink and their drive came to a sudden stop. Yoh flew forward, flipped on the floor and hit his back flat on the wall in front of him. Ryousukegave him a little chuckle and strutted towards him.

Blinking once or twice, Yoh finally rolled onto his knees and pushed himself up. "Ano… Ryousuke-san why are we all the way down here?"

"The things your mother asked me to get to you are in here." He pointed at the door before him.

Staring in awe, the door was incredibly detailed with all sorts of signs, ruins, letters, patterns, and everything one could think of. "No. I mean why is it so deep inside?" He looked around the door, looking for a way in, but there was no sign of entry.

"What we have in here is something that needed to be sealed up exactly eighteen years ago. The story is quite long, so I will leave it up to your mother to tell you." Holding out his hand, a stand came up through the floor. Ryousuke held out his hand, hovering over the stand waiting for something to react. And react it did. The stand began to glow and before anyone knew, it transformed into a long and thin key, containing sharp blades. (A/N: Kind of like Keyblades in Kingdom hearts except for the sharpness). "This may take a couple minutes, so feel free to sit down."

Glancing at the keeper, Yoh began to back up and watch him as he continued his ritual. Beneath the ground Ryousukewas standing on, it began to shake and eventually leave the earth all together. Grabbing the handle of the k ey, he held it like a sword and backed into a stance, signaling that he was ready to go on. Jumping up, Ryousukestruck the top of the door, and he continued to fall down metal began to clang and sparks appeared on every point of the door.

Yoh's brown eyes could barely keep up with his movements, till he finally stood back on the ground in an unmoving state. Within a second, sounds of the door unlocking presented itself and slowly the door winded open.

As the doors opened, a soft blue glow emitted from inside the entrance. The two walked inside to encounter a hollow room about a hundred feet in width and height. There stood a lone square rock in the middle of the room, supporting a rectangular wooden box, along with another small box on top.

Yoh was prepared to walk right up to the center until Ryousukeheld out his arm, preventing him from moving on.

"That's a really bad idea. You take another step, you'd be petrified and if that didn't happen it would paralyze you, if that didn't happen you'd be sent to a different world that engulfs you in darkness, if tha-"

"Okay I get it. If I took another step I'd be screwed." He waited for him to continue with his process.

"This'll be really quick." Holding up his hands together, Ryousukeconcentrated his energy. The next second a glow appeared and disappeared. "Alright, let's go." Without any sign of hesitation, Ryousukewalked forward, while Yoh followed.

Catching up with him he began to question his earlier actions, "Ryousuke-san, how did you do that earlier? You know, with that barrier or booby trap or whatever."

"That's just a simple thing I learned a while back from my father. Which remind me. I have to teach it to you how to activate and deactivate it. You may need to use it someday."

"What for?"

"You'll know when the time comes." Finally reaching the stone Ryousukereached down to hover his hand over the box again but paused for a second. "This is the perfect time to teach you how to do this."

Leading Yoh over to the front of the stone he told him, "Recite the worlds as I recite them, 'Kurai no sekai zettai ni aru, Hikari no Tobira ga mamoreba, Kono Jyumon wo kiete kurareta.'"

Yoh repeated his words. "Alright now touch the box."

"What? What if it didn't work?"

"Trust me it did work." Yoh reached down, eyes shut, to touch the box. Underneath his fingers he felt the dusty wooden box. "It worked!" Yoh's face brightened at the thought of surviving the touch.

"Pick them up and let's go." Outside the door, Ryousukeclosed the door. This time Yoh kept up with all of his movements and strikes, remembering everything in his mind.

After they returned up the stairs Ryousuketold Yoh, "If anything ever happens remember to come here. You know where everything is. This compartment can hold only humans, but no souls are allowed inside due to all the artifacts inside. Also Yoh, when you come down here, don't EVER open any of them unless I allow you to okay?"

"Uh… Okay."

"Now, off you go." Yoh left with the boxes in his arm while Amidamaru followed along behind him. Ryousukewhispered to himself, "I hope he'll be ready for what lies ahead. It's going to be a tough path Yoh."

**~With Yoh~**

"Wow time really flew by. I thought we were down there for like thirty minutes, but it's been like two hours already. Got to get back home quick then return to Anna. I'm pretty sure she's going to kill me for not tellin' her I left."

"Shall we get there quicker then Yoh-dono." Amidamaru suggested.

"Yea, that would be best." After getting to the outskirts of town, Yoh hopped onto the samurai's back and literally flew back to his home.

"By the way Yoh-dono, what is in the box? Did Ryousuke-dono mention anything about it?"

"No, he didn't really tell me much, except for a new spell I had to remember. Other than that, there wasn't anything else. All he gave me was this wooden box and told me to go home."

His brown bangs flew in eyes, so using his hand he brushed them out of his face. After a few minutes the two reached the mountain where the Asakura family lives. Stepping off the floating man's back he put his two feet firm on the ground before walking towards the door.

Sliding the door open Yoh yelled out, "Tadaima!"

"Yoh!" His mother came rushing out and engulfed him in a death hug.

"Kaa-cchan… Can't… br..ea…the!" Yoh barely made it out with any air in his lungs, and started gasping as soon as she let him go.

"Gomen, Yoh. I was just so excited to see you." Looking behind him, on the floor lied the package his mom, Keiko, had requested. Leaving him aside, she walked to the box and picked it up. "Is this?"

"Yea. I picked it up about half an hour ago." Yoh said as a matter of fact.

"Mikihisa! Otousan, Okaasan! It's here!"

As if on cue, the three popped their heads out from the door from the living room and the oldest of the three yelled out, "Well? What are you waiting for? Get in here!"

The mother and Yoh rushed into their current room and placed the wooden box onto the surface of the table. "What is it supposed to be?" Yoh questioned.

"This Yoh, is the history of our family." Mikihisa began to untie the large rectangular box and the smaller box but did not open it up. "Before I give this to you Yoh, we have to tell you about what happened exactly eighteen years ago. Otou-san, would you like to start?"

Yohmei opened up the small box, and took out two books. One was a small little brown book, and another was a thick black book. The bindings were worn out, papers torn, the books looked like they were several hundred years old. Keiko had gone and pulled some covers out to forbid the light from coming into the room. Carefully handling the fragile manuscript Yohmei opened up the book, "Ah, let us start here." A stream of light flew from the black book and a picture appeared above their heads. Yoh gapped in amazement at the scene before him and then Yohmei continued, "A bit more than five hundred or so years ago, our great ancestors were once one of the greatest and strongest Shaman families in the world. Although they were very well known through those times, they did not actually live along with the world. Our ancestors lived in a remotely small village, a tribe you would call it, travelers would come and go to take a rest but other than that. Many people did not go through that area."

Soon after Yohmei's short introduction, his wife had cut in, "During that time period it was a peaceful era. Everyone had gotten along with each other, and there were no wars, feuds or anything like that. Yet outside the world contained a lot of corruption. Other shamans were constantly looking for more power to feed off of and there existed a very strong shaman that went by the name of Shikimura Kato. This man was way more powerful than many of our ancestors and his thirst for greatness thrived as he lived on. He has heard about the Asakura clan and their strength, so he sought out our clan. While he searched for us, he continued his reign of terror, killing off one shaman after another absorbing their furyoku in the process."

"Eventually he found our clan and immediately challenged us to a shaman fight." Mikihisa continued to tell the story, "One by one, each shaman had dropped and lost to Shikimura. His power was way to great for any of them to handle, so as a last resort the remainder of our clan had ran away to survive. About fifteen members were left of that clan were left standing, so they fled to this area right here." Yoh's father pulled out a map and pointed to a spot off the region of where both the Fire and Wind country had resided. "During that time, there was a wife who was pregnant and gave birth to two boy twins. For the next twenty or so years, the clan taught them everything they knew about fighting, spirits, attacks, and other things. Then soon, the annual shaman fight was soon to come and the two twins entered in order to beat Shikimura. At first neither one of them really cared who'd win or not, but at last round of the preliminary one of the twins had to face Shikimura."

Up on the wannabe overhead projector, a man with short brown hair walked up onto the battlefield against another man with hot red hair and eyes. "The two fought endlessly for nearly forty-eight hours non-stop. Eventually our ancestor had defeated him, but that victory earns him a horrible curse. No one truly knows what was the ability he gained, but after that battle he became the man that Shikimura was. Terrorizing people for no apparent reason he had gone mad with power. There was no one to stop him, so it seemed. He was obviously much stronger than his brother, so it seemed as if he were the one to become the designated shaman king." Yoh stared at the hovering lights and the man with the short chocolate hair seemed like someone he knew yet Yoh couldn't place his finger on his face.

"His twin, unknowingly, held a powerful and effective weapon. That weapon was called the Matamune, an ancient spirit guardian from a thousand years ago. The two made it to the final battle, but one was much stronger than the other. The evil twin had no regrets about anything. He could do anything he needed to do to get rid of his obstacles. During that moment, the obstacle was his very own brother and he felt he had no choice but to eliminate him. We'll just watch this scene here and then you'll understand where everyone and where we come from." Yoh stared at the glowing image, the two brothers one with short and another with long brown hair. Their spirits clashed with one another, fighting for their honor and the title everyone sought for. The shorthaired one glared at the other with terrifying eyes, with a look that could literally kill someone. All the fighting and pain that Yoh saw, he could barely take in all the information. Going on for a few more minutes, the image flashed the most gruesome scenes. At last, the final scene was soon here. The longhaired shaman jumped up in the air and slashed down at right through his twin's chest. Blowing him all the way down to the floor and nailing him to the ground. With a big hole in his chest, the dominating boy held his head down along with his sword that was currently in the hole of the dying boy's chest.

"What is he doing?! He just killed his own brother!" His eyes were widened in shock.

"Just watch for a while Yoh." On the image the winner took his sword out of his twin's chest. Lying in a puddle of blood, his breathing started to become shallower, within a couple seconds his breathing just stopped. Stepping to his side, he kneeled down next to his head. Yoh couldn't see his face, yet it was clearly visible that it was hard for the winner as well. He was trembling and through the holes of his brown streaks of hair. A lone drop of tear came tumbling down his cheek and onto his dead twin's face. Yoh barely could see what he said, but he did mumble one discreet word before leaving his bloody twin all alone.

That final picture on the image was what scared Yoh them most. There was one last close up of the dead twin's face and that face was, "Me. That looks exactly like me!" The boy stared at the picture, horrified but his father moved on with the story.

"Yoh that may look like you but we don't really know who is who. On the first page of the book was signed Yohken and Hao. There are no words in this book to tell us exactly who is Yohken and who is Hao. Nevertheless the dead twin did not truly die, but he did reincarnate. Bringing us to the current situation we are in. From the day of your birth, you known that you've had a twin right?" Yoh nodded as his answer. "Well, we named both of you according to our ancestors. You by the name of Yohken, and your twin is named Hao."

Now is was his mother's turn, "Well you remember those stories told you about having a twin, and what went wrong right? Those are all based on fact and all of them are true. Six months after you two were born, something terrible happened. The spirit of fire came and kidnapped or took Hao away from us. We just assumed that it was Fire Country manipulating Hao to destroy our country. With the power of your uncles and aunts, along with otousan's brothers and sisters, they had enough strength to seal away his powers temporarily. At the same time, releasing such a large amount of furyoku, many of the babies who were born in a two-week span died except for one. That person is Anna. We have the theory behind it, but all we know she absorbed a large amount of furyoku that was release and she may not look like it now, but she is a very powerful Itako, given the right training at least."

"We let you go with her because we believe that she will have the right input on your training." Mikihisa voiced his input.

"So then what's that other book?" Yoh pointed toward the book with the brown cover.

"This. You are not allowed to read it, until you're qualified and make it all the way to Shaman king tournament." Again Yoh's eyes widened in surprise at his father's commentary.

"It's going to start?! How? When? Why?" Before the rambling boy could continue, Keiko stopped him.

"Every five hundred years, this tournament takes place, and since it will already have been five hundred years in several more months we must get you prepared for it. There is no doubt that Hao will enter the tournament and we can't foresee what he would do if he got the Great Spirit." Keiko closed the book and placed it back into the box along with the other brown book as well.

"Last but not least…" Yohmei put forth the large rectangular box and began his explanation, "This weapon has been passed down from generation to generation, waiting for its time to shine once again. Right now is its right time, but as we all said, you must go through proper training before you are able to use this." Opening up the box there laid a small red sword shaped stone. "This is called the Futsu no Mitama no Tsurugi. You will not be able to use until you and Amidamaru have reach the necessary level. Now, last but not least. Amidamaru." Yohmei called upon Yoh's guardian, and he came out of thin air waiting for him to speak. "You and Yoh must work hard together in order to become qualified for the quarter finals."

"This is a sword forged by someone very important to you." Revealing the sheathed sword to the samurai and took it out of its shaft.

"That sword!" Immediately he recognized the aura of the sword and even the metal of the blade. "This was made by my life-long friend, Mosuke. It's called the Harasume. But… How did you guys find it?"

"Five hundred years ago this was dug up by our ancestor. Although he didn't use it, he felt that it may come in handy someday in the future and I think it will be a big help to you two." Yohmei sheathed the sword and handed it over to Yoh. "Are you ready for this?"

Taking it in his hands, he opened up the blade and stared at his own reflection. Yoh nodded, "Yea, I think I am. How bout you Amidamaru?"

"Hai Yoh-dono. I'm as ready as you are!" Amidamaru confirmed.

"Alright then." Before Yoh could say anything he saw the sun begin to go down. "It's so late already. Anna's gonna kill me! Uh… I should go. Tou-san, Kaa-san, jii-can, baa-chan. See you later!" Grabbing the sword he went out the door and towards the front entrance. After putting on his shoes he slid the door open only to be presented with a horrible surprise.

"Yoh!" He couldn't move a muscle and soon after, his entire family came running out.

"What's going o-" Shocked at the scene right before them all of them froze.

"You must hurry Yoh! Go before it's too late!" Right then Yoh took off towards town and back to his employer's estate.

In less than two minutes Yoh had arrived at the scene. The front gate was already on fire, along with all the trees that lead to the entrance. He climbed up the sidewall trying to avoid guards. All of them began to storm the mansion, but hopefully most of the got away in time. Right now his first priority was finding Anna and Kouhei, so he tried to get through the only area that had no guards. The farthest room away from where their rooms were. "Amidamaru. Check the area as discreetly and see if you find anyone left. Make sure you get them out as soon as you can. I'm going to look for Anna and her dad." With that they went their separate ways.

Amidamaru had found many servants and maids; luckily they could all see spirits, and were aided out by the samurai. While then, Yoh wasn't all that lucky. He had to fight a few guards quickly knocking them unconscious.

Yoh refrained from yelling out their names, but quickly moved to find the two. Door after door, he tried to find them. The lasts rooms to try were the kitchen, living room, and their rooms along with his.

_I'll try the common rooms first._ Slowly creeping around the corner, he peeked from the side, making sure not to be seen. The guards were busting up the place, as if trying to find something. Scanning around quickly, he was glad that Anna and Kouhei weren't there. As they turned around Yoh made his entrance and knocked them on the back of the neck. As they fell on the floor he ran through the kitchen and towards Kouhei's room first.

Sliding the door open a little Yoh poked his eye through the hole. He slid the door all the way open and walked in. "Kouhei-san? Are you here?" _Apparently not…_ He thought. Just as he walked out the room he heard footsteps and quickly shut himself back inside.

"That's everyone. I couldn't find the last one though. I got rid of one in the first room down the hall."

Extremely pissed off, Yoh couldn't handle it anymore. Throwing the door open, he drew his sword, turned it around and hit their stomachs in rage. He fought the temptation of killing them, but buried those thoughts back into his mind.

Leaving them on the floor he ran down the hall. _Please be okay Anna. Please…_ Again he slammed the door open and yelled, "Anna!" He saw on the floor a puddle of blood, and even more shocked as to who it was…

"Oh shoot…--!"

**TSUZUKU!!**

Cliffhanger! But it's kind of obvious on who it's going to be. But don't be too sure. Right now I don't even know who it's going to be. So beware!

Sorry I took like a year to update, but I just didn't have any inspiration. So I thank jack-adam's "A Girl called Anna" for putting me back on track. If anything is unclear to you guys don't hesitate to ask me any questions. The background story isn't exactly by the book but I needed to make it work with this one. Any further weirdness you guys need answers for, I'll answer.

I see the lemon drifting farther away. T-T I was actually looking forward to writing it until I got to the history lesson XD. I'll do my best to update since I'm working on my portfolio now. So maybe anticipate

Till next time!

-Meru: I changed my name cuz I didn't like it.

Also… REVIEW PLEASE!!! Press this little button down here… And write a message. Please no flames :D. V V V V V V V V


	3. The Fallen

Disclaimer: I don't own shaman king…

On with Chapter three! Hope you guys like the last chapter. It was a little confusing on the history part. But basically: it's the same thing as the real shaman king, except that Yoh is not the reincarnation of Hao. Each of the twins five hundred years ago reincarnated as a different person. And yes the winner five hundred years ago has long hair and the one that died has short hair.

So I'll try to continue on with the story as best I can. I'm not so much a super inspired writer, but sometimes when I'm really into, I get really excited. The more reviews I get, the more inspired I become as to keep on writing. Hopefully I'll get this done before I go to college. :D

Summary: During the Shaman era, the Asakura Clan was said to have disappeared due to trying to stop a deathly fate upon their country. For years their country has honored the clan and their success, but 10 years have passed and they have already been nothing but a legend and a myth. The Kyouyama Clan has been appointed to run the country, and the head of the clan's daughter is a strong itako. After an attack upon her, a boy had saved her and the head appointed him as her bodyguard for the time being. Something lies within their path that is blocking them from crossing… but what?

**Fight for the Shaman Queen**

"Kouhei-san!" Running up to his battered body, he checked to see if he was okay. Yoh took off his shirt to press on the wound that was leaking blood onto the floor. "What happened?"

Squinting his eyes to opening at the worried boy, "Yoh…" Reaching his hand up to his shoulder, Yoh grabbed his hand. "Find… Anna. Make sure…she's safe…"

"What about you? Anna'll never forgive me if I leave you here." He tried to pick him up, but Kouhei retaliated.

"Don't! You must go find…Anna. I…" Taking a deep breath he continued "Won't be able… to make it out of here."

"No! You will! I won't let you die!" He was certainly determined to help him make it out alive, but deep down he knew that he wouldn't make it out alive.

"Go find her Yoh…" Kouhei struggled with all his might to get these few words out.

"Don't go yet Kouhei-san. I'm going to bring her to you no matter what!" Grabbing one of the dying man's hands, he pressed it upon his wound. "Keep this here. It'll slow down the bleeding. I'll be back as soon as I can." About ready to leave, Yoh suddenly stopped, "Uh… Do you have any idea where she would hide?"

"There's only…one place that is safe enough during a time… like this… in your room. Look around for an opening… under… the tatami mats. There…will be a secret doorway. She must… be there." With that Yoh immediate took off out the door.

Out in the hallways, he made sure there was no one coming down the passageways. _Weird… What happened to the guards I knocked out earlier. And what's that weird smell? Agh… I'm running out of time. I have to hurry and find Anna. _Ignoring the difference he ran to his room and went inside. Trying to look for any move tatami mats, he had no success. _Of course Anna wouldn't leave a trace. Then they would be able to find her. Okay Yoh. Think. If you were a secret hidden passage where would you hide? In the corners! _

He lifted up all the tatami mats in all four corners of the room but no openings were there. _Shoot I have to hurry before they come back! Screw thinking I'll just flip all of the open!_ Without a second thought at it, he began taking all the tatami mats and throwing them to one side of the room. After throwing almost all of them away. "Ahh! Where is it?!"

Coming to the very last mat Yoh said aloud, "You have got to be kidding me." The straw mat looked like it was embedded to the floor. So Yoh pried the sides until he was able to try and lift it up. Tugging at it harder, "Why… won't… it…come… up!" He released his grip and fell onto the ground, panting in exhaustion.

Recovering from the fall, he got back onto his knees and checked the bottom of the mat. "Weird… I could've sworn I pulled it off the floor. Now its still glued to the floor." What's more was that the tatami mat was only as square, not a rectangle. "That would mean there's something underneath here." Looking at the sides of the tokonoma or alcove, he tried to feel for a secret trigger that would set anything off. Unfortunately he couldn't find anything. A small movement from Yoh and the vase of flowers fell over, getting the entire ledge wet.

He didn't notice it till a while later, but on the very corners of the tokonoma, water began to seep into the openings. It hit him that maybe the passage way was underneath the mat. Just that the tokonoma's stone is crushing it. Trying to find a way through the big block of cement. He pounded the ledge in frustration, and the picture hanging on the wall fell off. Hearing the sound of paper sliding down, he looked up. "What's this?" Pulling the paper talisman off the wall something unexpected happened.

"Ahh!!!" Screaming as he fell down the hole that just opened beneath him. Finally reaching the bottom, he looked around to see where he was. It was a little dark, but he could still make out very few outlines of the room. To be honest, Yoh was a little scared, but sucking up his gut, he did what was needed, "Anna! Anna are you –oof-!" Stumbling over a large object. He could barely make out whom it was and soon he felt something crush his face.

"You bastard! Get away from me! I have enough power to rip your insides out you know!" She began to flaunt her feet around, trying to get him away from her.

Avoiding her feet, he grabbed her shoulders, which was probably the worst idea he has ever had. "Ann-!" *POW*

Yoh was literally thrown all the way to his left side along with a throbbing right cheek, "Ow…Anna…It's me, Yoh."

It took her a few seconds for her to react, and soon she was by his side, "Sorry Yoh. I was just a little shocked that someone knew about this place. Are you okay?" By now they could kind of see each other in the darkness. Anna put her hand onto his burning cheek.

"Ah! Ow…" Letting her hand set on his face, he flinched at the soft touch. "That was a really good slap. Any harder, you could've killed anyone that comes at you." Yoh joked, trying to lighten up the mood. Anna didn't respond to his remark so he asked, "Anna, are you okay?"

"Why did they do this? We didn't do anything wrong!" Anna screamed out

Focusing on the more important matter, Yoh began to look around the cave they were in, "Anny do you know which way is the way out?"

"No… The only way I know is the way I came. After my dad…" Her eyes widened in realization. "Yoh! My dad! What happened to my father!?"

He just remembered, "Kouhei-san! Anna we have to hurry." He dragged her hand the way they came from, and pulled her up the slope. "Just hold my hand and don't let go alright? It's a little steep, but I think we can make it up." Gripping her hand tightly, he drew out his sword. "Do you think you can hold this?" Anna took the sword shaft and held it in her hand, as she gripped his hand tightly. "Ready?" Yoh asked.

All Anna did was nod at his question, and they went up. With each step they took, Yoh dug his sword into the earth stepped up. Eventually the two got up to the top and the only was out, was closed. "What now? The door's closed and we can't get out now."

"Stand back a little." Yoh dug his feet into the sides of the pathway. The hole was a bit small but he could still fully stand and move his sword. Holding up the sword, he slashed the wall as best as he could, with limited space. After one more slash, the two went up and Yoh pushed the wall. The rock hard wall fell onto the floor as the two of them rushed through the opening. "This way, hurry!"

As the exited, it was unusually hot in the house. Outside the door Yoh had opened, he was instantaneously hit with a rush of blazing heat. Luckily the fire hadn't spread to their part of the house. He dragged Anna down the hall back to her room, "Yoh, where's my dad! Help me find him!"

"He's in your room Anna…" He said to her regrettably.

"Yoh… What happened?" She expressed angrily. Before she could walk in, Yoh stopped her.

"You have to promise me, that you won't do anything rash." He tried to word it as nicely and gently as he could.

"Fine! Now let me through!" Sliding the futsuma open, she stood there as if she were hit by a tsunami. "Dad!" Quickly rushing to his side, she held his bloody hand.

"Anna… You're okay…" Kouhei could barely make out these few words for his daughter.

Clutching his hand even tighter she tried to reassure him that he was going to be okay, "You're going to make it. We'll get you out!" Right when she was about to pick him up, a large explosion took place, and immediately Yoh covered Anna for the flames that flew through the door. Bits of flames burned the back of his shirt, and through to his skin. Yoh flinched and clenched his teeth, but stood his ground instead of rolling over in pain.

Looking around them, it seemed as if there were no way out. The path to the garden was completely engorged in fire, "Anna… You have to go… I won't last any… longer." Turning to Yoh he asked him, "Yoh, please take her away from here. Promise me to keep her safe… Anna, you must remember to do this… Go find Ryousuke… He has something…for you" Anna reassured the dying man. "Now go!" Yelling harshly at them while coughing up blood.

Yoh dragged her away from her father as she scratched and thrashed at him. "No! Let me go! My dad needs me!" Letting up a high shriek, piercing Yoh's eardrums. He tried his best to ignore her, and took her away from her father. Even though they were parting, Anna couldn't disconnect her eyes from the only family member she had left and the torn down door with three distinct scratch marks on them.

Tears welled up in her eyes as they turned the corner. With no looking back, she began to run along with Yoh, along with tears rolling down her cheeks like a waterfall.

"Come on this way!" He ran back to his room and was nearly cut off by one of the house's blazing wooden boards. He kicked down the door to make sure there was no fire on the other side. When it was safe Yoh pulled her towards the hole they had first come from. "Go Anna…"

Not giving him even one answer she slid down the small slope till she got to the bottom. After half a minute, he followed her, right then a giant explosion took place and blew him down the slope. "Yoh, get up. We have to find a way out of here." Anna said to Yoh with a confident tone in her voice.

He got up and walked along side with her. There was barely any source of light, so the began feeling around the walls for an exit. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they saw a path leading to an unknown area. From the very spot they were in, till the end of the path, Anna never let go of Yoh's hand. "I think there's a door up these stairs." He squinted his eyes to see a staircase leading up to a door. At the top of the stairs, the door was closed shut. Pushing the door open, they were presented with a forest of trees. By now the sun way already down, with the exception of the warm, hot light shining from the burning estate. "We gotta get to someplace safe."

"Wait! We have to find Ryousuke. He said it was important!"

Taking a second to think Yoh decided, "Okay, fine. But we have to be quick. We don't know if they're going to come after you too." Yoh and Anna began running around the mountain to go find Amidamaru. "Amidamaru! Where are you?"

Materializing from thin air he responded to him, "Yoh-dono! You're okay. I thought you were still inside."

"Uh… No. But we have to get back to Ryousuke-san's place." Yoh didn't really explain the situation but there was really no time to do it.

"Yoh-dono, I have to tell you that-"

Before he could say anything, the frustrated boy cut him off, "There's no time. We have to go." The two got on Amidamaru's back to go towards the storage area they were just in less than twenty-four hours ago. That wasn't the most shocking thing. When they got there the guards were already terrorizing the town, breaking and torturing the townspeople, burning their houses. The classic ambush the town bit.

Anna clenched her hands so tightly, that her knuckles began turn white, her arm started shaking in anger. "Who could've done this!" That question was answered with a loud roar.

Right when Yoh saw it, his eyes widened and his heartbeat increased till he felt faint. "No… It can't be…" Up in sky, towering over the town was the one spirit he thought he would never see. "It's…it's…"

In a baffled manner Anna stared at the floating spirit, "That's the spirit of fire. I'd never thought I'd actually see it." She looked over at Yoh, but apparently he too busy scanning the orange blue atmosphere for something or _someone_.

Snapping out of his daze he began to focus on the task at hand, "Let's go. Hopefully he'll be okay." They sneaked in the alleyways and through the tunnels to reach the storage building. "Here it is. Doesn't look like it's in very good shape." Walls were run down, windows shattered, and inside they could see the furniture thrown around the room. "There's no one here right now. Come on, let's go in."

Once again he dragged Anna into their destination. Inside was a dreaded sight. Even if the windows were broken, the image that made everything much worse was the red all over the place. People were all over the place, soaked in their own blood, along with the woman he saw almost six hours earlier. "Damn him…" Yoh growled under his breathe, "Let's keep on going. We have to get whatever you need to get and go back to my place."

"Wait, how do we know we'll be safe at your house?" Skipping and stepping over bodies, they had a hard time keeping the blood off their feet.

"Because, they won't be able to find us there. My parents set up a perimeter, if anyone ever crosses that line, we'll know and have enough time to run away." He opened the door and checked if anyone dangerous was inside. There was no one but a man lying in his own thick red blood. A hole through the man's chest, and his face all messed up. "Ryousuke-san!" Rushing to his side, he tried to shake him awake. (A/N: So many people dying T-T)

"Yoh-kun… You're okay… Is that Anna?" The blonde girl revealed herself to him. "It is…" He smiled at her weakly.

Putting up her strong front she asked him, "Ryousuke, where's the thing my dad wanted me to pick up."

Laughing for a bit he answered her, "It's that time right? Yoh…" Turning to the brown haired boy supporting his head with his hand, "Go down, back to the underground storage… Take the…Platform back to the end and go up one level. I'm pretty… confident that you know how to do it… there. On the platform… run your hand all the way right and down. Good… luck…" His voice trailed off with those last two words.

Yoh shut his eyes in anger, but overcame it. Setting his head back onto the floor, he stood up and walked towards the bookcase.

"What are you doing?! We're in a middle of a crisis, and now find that it's a good time to read a book?!" Anna yelled at Yoh.

"I didn't wake you when I left, but just several hours before the attack, I was here, standing near this very spot." His hand went to a book and he opened it up. Every single action that Yoh did made sense to him. But Anna failed to see what good it did for anything in that matter.

After she had enough of his silliness, she asked the mystified boy staring at the book, "What are you doing? It's bad enough this entire town is being destroyed but now you're playing with a book? How is this going to work?"

"It's weird. When I was here, it worked… but now it isn't. What was different when I came here than it is now." Looking around the room he hit on the head. "I know now. It's the table. Anna come help me with-" He took a glimpse at Anna's face and currently, she was hold a 'You're kidding me' look or the 'Do it yourself' look. Never minding that, he brought the table back on its legs and pushed it towards the original spot. As it got back in place, Yoh jumped backwards when the bottom of the floor began to move.

"See, I told you I knew what I was doing." Even at a time like this, Yoh did his best to smile. "Amidamaru, stay here and make sure you're not seen. When we go down the stairs make sure to knock over the table so they won't be able to find us." Before they left, the two washed their hands in Ryousuke's office bathroom and went down the stairs. They began to descend, as soon as then got low enough, the ceiling wall closed upon them and the candles in the wall began to light up one by one.

Anna decided it was best not to ask any questions so she just followed behind Yoh. The got to the bottom of the stairs and Yoh led Anna upon the platform. "Make sure you stand your ground. This thing goes really fast."

"I think I'll be fine." Anna, at his left side, said as he dragged his finger horizontally across the line above the above, all the way to the end, then down a couple inches. Right when he lifted his finger, the floor underneath them sped forward, causing Anna to fall over.

She prepared herself to be rolling and tumbling on the floor, luckily Yoh had caught her in time before she fell off, "See, I told you so." Anna glared at his remark and slapped him on the head.

Mumbling a couple words to herself, she then brought up a very good point, "How long does it take to get there?" The blonde shifted her body, feeling uncomfortable at the moment, until she found a better position.

"Last time I was here it took a couple minutes I think." He rubbed his chin in a puzzled thought, but he still couldn't recall the exact time it took to get there. "All I know is that once we reach the end of this tunnel, we're gonna go in a different direction so we should prepare ourselves for the worst. That way we won't get thrown off."

A minute passed and they were still soaring across the floor. "Wait I think that's it over there. That's the same place I was a couple hours ago." They drew closer and closer, but they didn't slow down. Yoh knew what was in store for them but Anna didn't know was going to happen, yet she kept her head held up high and looked forward.

Like last time they stopped abruptly, but this time was different. They did not take one second to rest, and the platform flew up, almost as if they were going towards the sky. Taken off guard by the sudden change in directions, Yoh and Anna fell on their behinds. The intensity and speed of the wind kept the two of them down, while Yoh was trying his best to ignore the dirt that was digging into his wounds.

A few seconds went by and the platform began to slow down, and before them was a whole new scene. The door was definitely same as all the other ones, but the area was much more spacious than the lower floor. There was a random pool of water that seemed to go pretty deep, but there was something about it that was weird. Yoh couldn't put his finger on it so he ignored the fact. Feet flat on the ground the two went up to the door. "What now?"

Letting out a chuckle he turned to Anna, "You seem to be asking a lot of questions today."

She squint her eyes and stared at him with a glare, "Just hurry up." Turning away for a couple minutes and then a loud rumble came beneath them. Presented before them were a fully opened door, and a cheeky boy holding a large key. Anna wanted to ask what he did, but from that previous remark she decided against it. A few steps into the door, Yoh stopped her. He mumbled a couple of words under his breathe before letting her continue on.

"Whatever you do, don't touch anything without my consent." His command angered Anna, since no one ever ordered her around, especially not someone whom has known her for a less than a couple days. Although she was a bit angry, right now was not the time to be rebellious and do the wrong thing. She saw him hover his hand over the medium sized box, and chant the same line as before. "It's supposedly yours… so it's only right you take it."

Her hands wrapped around the corners of the box, she didn't open it but did pick it from is original place. The moment it left the rock everything around them began to shake. "What the?!" Anna grabbed onto the side of the rock to prevent herself from falling, while Yoh was trying to find out what on earth was going on.

Right at the entrance of the very room the door started to close at a quick speed. "Shoot! Anna we have to go." Realizing the dilemma they were in, both began running towards the closing door.

It was shutting faster and Anna was lagging behind a little bit. By this point, Yoh was sure that she wouldn't be able to get out unless he did something. He slowed down to Anna's side and grabbed her legs and waist, carrying her in a bride-like manner. The sound of the door pressured the boy to push it to his limit, and soon they were barely out the door with Yoh's shirt clamped in between the doors. Nearly choking him to death he ripped his shirt off and let Anna down. "I know this is going to sound stupid but… you okay?"

The blonde desperately tried to contain her anger and let out a comment, "Beside the fact that my dad was left for dead and killed, the town destroyed and everyone killed, then seeing a room full of dead people with blood all over the walls, along with a man who just died without us doing anything. Yea, what do you think?!" For once in Anna's life, she felt utterly helpless, as if there were nothing left in the world that could help her. She despised those emotions that she was feeling and pushed them aside. "I don't have anything to live for anymore… My last family member just died right before my eyes and I couldn't do anything to prevent it." Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes, but she thought to herself _No. Not twice. I'm not going to cry twice._ She blinked back the tears and put up a strong front.

While she was conversing to herself, Yoh could barely keep his eyes open. Nothing seemed to be in focus for him as his back was burning in pain, nevertheless he said something to the disheartened girl. "You can't just give up now. Your dad sent you out to get this back, so there has to be a reason he wanted you to have it. So before you give everything up… think about what mission your dad gave…you…" Yoh's voice trailed off and Anna heard a loud thud on the ground.

She turned to see the shirtless boy flat on the ground with a painful expression on his face. The reservoir wasn't too far away from his body, so the wrapped his arm over her shoulder and began to drag him to the side of the water. Using his shirt she dabbed some water and cleaned up his disgusting back burn in the form of three long scratches. "Weird. I didn't think flames would leave deep scratch marks." Anna said as she cleaned up the blood that was leaking down his wound.

With the last half of his shirt she dried the wound as best she could. So far the injury had stopped bleeding, but it wasn't guaranteed that it wouldn't open again. She let him lay there on her red scarf/bandana (A/N: let's just say it's a bandana, therefore everyone will actually know it's her) as she went to wash off her hand and face.

It wasn't long before Yoh had woken up to see Anna sitting on a random rock in the middle of the lake. He picked up her scarf and dove in the water, not really caring if the scarf got wet or not, he swam to her. "Hey. Feeling better?"

She gave him the usual look she gave everyone who asked her a stupid questions, "What do you think?"

Honestly not knowing, Yoh continued to ask, "Well. I dunno. That's why I asked you, so you could tell me." On his face was pasted with that boyish smile of his. Anna ignored his comment and continued to sit there silently. There was an awkward silence between them until Yoh shattered that stillness, "Sorry I got your bandana wet, I wasn't thinking when I brought it under water."

Still ignoring him she brought up another point, "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Yoh tilted his head in confusion, "I meant your back. It's badly burnt you know."

"Yea I know. Didn't really have time to worry about it."

"Idiot" Was the only word that Anna muttered to him.

He took no offense to her comment, but instead he voiced his own opinion, "Anna, I think we should leave now. It's been a while and Amidamaru is probably freaking out right now." At the exact moment he said those words Anna came to realization.

"That could be a problem…" She said nervously.

"Why's that? Did something happen to it?" He asked in confusion.

She let out a sigh of hopelessness, "When we got out of that place, you got your shirt caught then after you fell unconscious. We were supposed to get back onto the platform to go back, but instead it left without us."

"That would mean…" Yoh said regrettably.

Anna confirmed his fears, "Yes Yoh. We have no way out." She ended her sentence and out of nowhere Yoh had gone underwater. "That idiot."

For a couple of minutes there was no sign of Yoh, and Anna thought he had drowned. She had already given up hope of leaving this desolated area, until Yoh surface a couple of feet away from her yelling out, "Anna! I found a way out!" He swam towards her and asked her another question, "Can you swim?"

"Of course I can swim." She said confidently.

"Well good, then can you hold your breathe for at least one minute?" Anna stared at him incredulously.

"Why would I want to hold my breathe for a minute?"

Before he answered her, Yoh pondered for a minute and responded, "Cause it takes a minute to swim to the other side."

Wondering if she should believe him or not, doing something was better than doing nothing. She shivered at the coldness as let herself down in the water and then swam towards the spot Yoh was near. She treaded in the water and said to him, "If I die swimming over there, I'll come back to life and kill you myself." She glared at the young boy.

"Fine, I promise NOT to let you die." He slapped the carefree smile onto his face, "So on three we hold our breaths and then dive okay?"

Anna nodded, signifying her understanding of his directions. Yoh counted to three and both of them took deep breaths and headed under water. Underneath, Anna could see the hole in the floor, it was dark but she could see it. To speed up the process, the boy grabbed her hand and led her through the hole.

Inside the water cave it was pitch black, nothing but darkness surrounded them. Through her eyes she could barely even see Yoh's figure, but their hands secured each other through the path. Anna had nearly fallen unconscious from the lack of air, but as soon as they surfaced she couldn't hold her breath any longer and let the cool liquid flow through her lips, choking her in the process. When they were above the surface level Anna coughed, desperately trying to get the unwanted water from her windpipe out.

Yoh held her as they floated above the water and asked again, "Are you okay? Do you have enough strength to get back to land?"

The coughing girl shook her head as she tried to refrain herself from hacking up a storm, "I think I can manage though."

"Hm… I'd rather you not. But if you can hold on for a second, I'll see if I can reach Amidamaru from here." For a minute, Yoh tried to send weird telepathical brainwaves to his spirit medium. Unfortunately, bringing up this point was useless because the samurai spirit did not appear anywhere. "Guess we'll have to swim back." Looking back down at Anna, he reconfirmed, "Hang onto my shoulder, it doesn't seem to be to far away." Yoh said, concerning the distance.

"It's fine. I can make it back, I don't need anyone's help."

The brown haired boy thought about it for a second then refused, "Well, I promised your dad to take care of you. So you wouldn't want me to break that promise… Would you?" He looked at her incredulously.

Glaring at him, she felt as if she had no other choice but to hang on. He slipped his hand around her waist and ensured that she wouldn't fall underwater, and began to tread back to land. About thirty feet out from solid land, Yoh kicked a hard and solid object, nearly shattering his shinbone. Eyes wide open in pain, he collapsed on the object he hit, trying to suck in the pain and soothe it away. When he let go of Anna, luckily, she caught onto the object as well, preventing her from sinking.

"Ow!" Yoh repeated that one word over and over again, until he had gotten over the pain. On the other hand, Anna stood up on what seemed to be solid land already, and walked around waist deep.

"Apparently land was actually closer than we thought it was." Considering that they only swam less than twenty feet. Still underwater, clutching in pain, Anna reached her hand down and pulled him up, "Can you at least make it to dry land?"

"If you help me." He smiled weakly. With a bit of hesitation, Anna put his arm around her shoulder and helped him across the water, then set him down on the dry ground.

Yoh lifted his knee up to see the damage done, and there it was. A big bluish purple, bleeding bruise, was smack dab in the middle of his shin. He could feel the throbbing from the pain, almost as if it were burning then quickly sunk it back into the cool water.

"Yoh-dono!" At the most unnecessary time, the spirit guardian appeared behind Yoh, with streaming spirit tears running down his cheeks. "Are you hurt?"

He gave the samurai a cheeky smile as always and explained the situation, "I'm okay Amidamaru. I just hit my leg a little bit." Yoh attempted to get up, but instantly fell due to the weakness in his leg. Luckily, Anna was quick enough to support him and prevent him from any further harm towards himself. "Eh heh. Thanks Anna."

Giving another glare at the boy, she continued to help him over to Amidamaru. "Do you think you can take us back home?" Yoh directed his questioned at the floating man.

Amidamaru gave a vigorous nod of his head and went closer to the two, waiting for them to get on. Anna aided the limping boy to his spirit and helped him get on, after she climbed onto the spirit and waited for take off. "Are you ready Yoh-dono, Anna-dono?"

"Yea." With that the samurai spirit flew into the depths of the forest, avoiding trees and branches, trying to avoid being seen. "Anna…" The girl turned her head to Yoh, "When we get there, you have to understand… there are certain things you won't get right away." She arched her eyebrow, questioning his word, but he continued on anyways, "I don't know if I have the liberty to say anything right now, without getting in trouble, but all I can say is _I understand if you hate me later on._"

After Yoh had spoken those words, nothing came out of the two teens. They just sat there waiting to arrive at the boy's home. As they approached the mountain at full speed, they began to elevate above the ground soaring into the sky. Certainly Anna had no idea what was currently happening, but she continued on with the awkward silence until they arrived. Suddenly it hit her, _Why is there a mountain in an area where everything is supposed to be a forest? I don't remember even seeing one this tall from… well, anywhere. _Anna thought.

Anna started asking a million questions in her head and before she knew it, they were already in front of a door, imbedded onto the exterior of the large mountain. "We're here." Yoh got off the spirit, and helped Anna down.

Almost as if Yoh had read her mind he answered her question, "I know it's weird, but we'll explain everything soon."

"Everyone?" On cue, Keiko rushed out of the door and clamped her son in a tight death-grip hug.

"Are you okay? You didn't get hurt right? Oh my goodness, you did get hurt! Didn't I tell you to be careful? How did you get it? Did someone attack you? Did you fight? Did you-"

"Kaa-chan!" Yoh stopped her and tried to hint at his unexpected guest.

She stopped and looked back at her son, "Is she?" Yoh slowly nodded his head. Walking past her son she went up to Anna and greeted her, "You must be Anna. You're probably pretty confused right now, but before that let's get you cleaned up."

Before they even started walking Yoh tried to go inside with his injured leg. Being too weak to even put pressure on that leg, he flinched at the pain and nearly tumbled over. With fast reflexes Anna supported him before he actually fell onto the ground, "You really need to be more careful. Don't try to do anything stupid. Put your arm over my shoulder." Anna commanded and Yoh obeyed. Grabbing his waist to make sure he didn't fall over anymore, they continued on towards the door.

As all this took place within twenty seconds, Keiko watched her son with the blonde girl and immediately had a weird glimpse in her eye. Cutting her off from her thoughts she heard her son call out to her, "Kaa-chan, are you coming in?" She looked up at the two starring back at her, waiting for her to come along.

"I'm coming. I just need to talk to Amidamaru for a second." She saw Yoh say something to Anna and as soon as he stopped they turned and walked through the doorway. As they disappeared Keiko turned to Amidamaru, "What happened in the village?"

When the question presented itself, the samurai's eyes shifted downwards. Keiko couldn't tell if it were of confusion, grief, or anger, but it seemed almost as if it were a combination of all. "_He_ was there, Keiko-dono." And just as the woman thought things couldn't get any worse, the Asakura's worst nightmare came for a little visit.

"What about the village?" Again his eyes were glued to the floor, and he shook his head. "He didn't… did he?" As Amidamaru nodded his head, Keiko's fears began to heighten.

"Everyone in that village, deserves more than what just happened. Anyone deserves more than that." Without responded to his comment, Keiko walked away from the spirit as he disappeared.

The woman walked along the hallway, and saw the two teens in Yoh's room. Yoh just sitting there wincing at his leg, as Anna tried to clean up the blood and wrap it. In a distance, deep into the house, there was a faint sound of arguing. Keiko quickly walked up to the noise, and walked in. The leftover of the Asakura clan were all arguing about something.

"We could've at least made to the effort!" Her husband yelled out.

"And do what? We all know no one is as strong as he is." Yohmei reasoned back.

"It still could have made a difference, instead of leaving half the people to die!"

"Quiet!" Everyone in the room turned to Kino. "What's done is done. We cannot undo the past. It's true we could have made an effort to try and protect them. Maybe then we would have save many people from suffering a problem we have caused. But, there was still the chance of that maybe going wrong. If Yoh, or any of us were to die, it would have been pointless for us to have stay hidden for so long. He is the only hope we have left… along with that young girl." Kino referred to her grandson and the thriving itako.

There was a quiet moment until they heard a knock on the door. As it slid open, the room's attention was now directed at Yoh and his dear guest, "Uh… What's going on? I heard some yelling down the hall."

"Actually, there something we need to discuss. Come in and sit down Anna." Keiko led her in and she sat near the corner of the table as Yoh sat near the corner next to it.

Before the actual talking began Anna asked first, "I actually have a few questions that need to be answered this instant. First off, why on earth is there a mountain that doesn't exist? And secondly, why the hell did my village get f*cked up by some stupid fire spirit and its retarded minions?" If the weather weren't as hot as it currently was, then no one would have known who was heating up the room. The burning air from the distant village or Anna's rising rage.

Yoh, Mikihisa, nor Keiko knew if they should answer her question so they kept quiet, waiting for the eldest ones to take over. "Your first question Anna. The answer is quite simple. We set up an illusion to make this mountain invisible from anyone outside this family. Only a certain number of people can see this mountain, and that is only for the ones that have actually stepped in the bounds of where the illusion does not affect a person any longer."

"So what you're saying is there is a invisible wall that blocks everyone out? How did we get in?"

This time Yoh answered her, "There is one way in, and only one way out. But when we go in and out, we always seal the field closed so no one accidentally discovers it."

"The answer to your second question… Well, it could be a little hard to explain. We shall start from the beginning… It all began with-" Yohmei started.

_**~Flashback~**_

"_Push! It's almost there! Just a little more Keiko!" The old man's daughter was sweating up a storm, crushing her husband's hand while her mother sat in the corner sipping her tea._

_Keiko screamed at the pain, "I can't! It's too much!"_

"_Just one more push!" And with all her might she took a deep breath and pushed out. After several seconds, a loud cry was heard throughout the room, but that was before still pregnant woman began screaming in pain again._

"_Keiko! What's wrong?" Mikihisa ran up next to her, and Yohmei left the baby with another relative. _

"_Impossible… There's another one! A twin! Keiko, this is going to hurt a little more, but just bear with it." By this point, the brown haired woman already felt dizzy almost as if she wanted to give up right then and there. Even if she were to die, she continued to push, hoping to give birth to her unexpected son. Within five minutes, one more baby boy was born into the world._

_Everyone in the room was tired, but Kino was aghast at what just happened, "Kino, come this way." Yohmei brought her over, but she was still trying to comprehend at what to do with the current situation._

"_What are we going to name them?" Mikihisa looked down at his wife._

_She pondered for a moment and soon it hit her, "I will call this one," picking up the youngest of the two, "…Yoh." Giving him a small peck on his cheek. "This one shall be…" she was about to name him her mother had cut her off._

"_Wait. There is something about this child." She touched his head then suddenly a bright light emitted from outside and the door blew open. _

_Up above, towering over the family was an unidentified spirit. It reached its hand down and grabbed the unnamed son. Both Mikihisa and Yohmei tried to stop them, but they were blown to the other sides of the room, knocking them unconscious. Kino attempted rid of the spirit but one try drained all the power out of her. Keiko was sitting there, clutching Yoh in her arms, and trying to reach for her eldest son. With barely enough strength to even hold up, the spirit brought the newborn with it. At impulse, Keiko screamed out her oldest child's name, "HAO!"_

_**~Flashback End~**_

_**(Note: When actually telling the story, they didn't tell the actual name of Yoh, just Hao.)**_

"Many members of the clan fought to protect and get back the child, but a lot of them suffered major injuries some of them even deaths." Kino continued.

"Basically the shortened version of the rest of it is after Hao was kidnapped, they started to face a lot of problems. Shortly the Fire Country began attacking, killing countless of people in the village, reigning terror upon the people of the wind country. Exactly two months after their birth, an extreme force of energy exploded throughout the country. We found out that every newborn that wasn't strong enough, like humans, unborn shaman children and human children, and other; they were all essentially killed in the power surge. During that period, there was one unborn child of half human descent and half itako ancestry. Of all those who died, she was one of the only one who had survived, but what makes her so special is she absorbed most of the energy that was emitted." Mikihisa explained.

"That girl was…" Keiko trailed on.

"Me…" Anna pointed herself out. Everyone looked towards her, wondering how she knew, "I've always had this weird feeling that I've been confined in my own home for so long. It was as if I were kept away from something. My dad…" She choked, "never really let me go out. He kept telling me if I went out, something bad would happen."

"Then your father was right to keep you in. Around your house, had a barrier set up around it, blocking any sense of furyoku from flowing out." Said Yohmei.

"Continuing on, sixth months after that another incident happened." Mikihisa was cut off short by the blonde teen.

"I've heard about that. It was the one where the Asakura clan sacrificed themselves to put away that monster that broke out right? I think after that, the entire clan had died or something like that. Maybe if they hadn't disappeared this thing wouldn't have happened." Anna referred to the incident that happened earlier and inside her chest began to feel a grudge against the extinct clan.

"They left me and my dad a mess we couldn't handle. They were the ones that were supposed to take over, not my father. If he hadn't taken that line, he wouldn't have died. He would still be alive right now!" Anna's anger and temper began to rise.

"That's not true Anna. Your father did do the right thing in choosing that position. The barrier set up around your home, was created for hundreds of years by the Asakura clan, in order to protect the king. If you two were living alone outside that palace, the fire country could have killed you even earlier." Mikihisa sighed and knew he was going to regret telling her the next thing, "I've known your father since I was a child. He always helped me out when I needed help. Even till now, he was helping me."

"What do you mean?" Anna questioned him.

"The truth behind what happened nearly seventeen years ago. It's not what you truly heard. After sealing Hao, the attacker, it took ten members altogether to put away the monster temporarily. Even if he was only 8 months old, he somehow got his spirit medium, the spirit of fire, at such a young age. After the king had passed, the next generation of the Asakura clan was supposed to over. But in order to stop the Fire Country from attacking, the remainder of the clan had to go into hiding to make them think that they had to sacrifice everyone in order to seal him."

"I don't really get it…" Anna said confusingly.

Yoh put a hand on her shoulder, "Anna…"

"If my father was helping you till now… And you were in hiding while he took over for the Asakura generation… then… no way. It can't be." She held her hand to her mouth, shocked at the new information.

"Anna!" She slowly turned towards him. Her heart pounded loudly against her chest, hoping that the next information wasn't what she thought it was. "I know you don't want to acknowledge that its true but…"

"No…"

"Hao is my brother. My twin brother." That fact smacked her right in the face.

"You lied to me…" He didn't listen to her, but just continued as the entire family watched.

"Anna… my name is Yoh..." She starred at him in fear and anger.

"Asakura Yoh." Anna finished for him.

**TSUZUKU!!**

Ooo. It's a cliffhanger in a way. Sorry for such a long and confusing thing. Don't hate me for killing off so many people. But yea. Anyways, I noticed that people favorite my story but they don't review it. The review button is just RIGHT there, so please review. My hit count lowered like three times the amount it was on chapter one, so please review.

If there are any questions regarding the confusion of the background story, please ask me. Cause I was kind of confused at the writing myself.

If you guys review enough, I'll make sure that the lemon is within at least one or two chapters. Depending where the story lead me, and depending at how soon I can get there. I don't want to have one of those crappy stories where there are no details whatsoever and they're so blunt that it makes me pissed off. So sorry for the details it's just the way I write things. I'm hoping to get at least 5 reviews for this chapter so pleaaaaaaaaase. I'm almost begging you to review my story.

So… REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!

Meru

PS NO FLAMES APPRECIATED


	4. Bloody Flames

Disclaimer: I don't own shaman king…

Hey I'm back with chapter 4! Sorry it took so long, but I loose motivation easily and the story gets kind of confusing while I write.

Summary: During the Shaman era, the Asakura Clan was said to have disappeared due to trying to stop a deathly fate upon their country. For years their country has honored the clan and their success, but 10 years have passed and they have already been nothing but a legend and a myth. The Kyouyama Clan has been appointed to run the country, and the head of the clan's daughter is a strong itako. After an attack upon her, a boy had saved her and the head appointed him as her bodyguard for the time being. Something lies within their path that is blocking them from crossing… but what?

**Fight for the Shaman Queen**

Anna clenched her jaw, trying to restrain herself from blowing up. Unfortunately, that didn't work very well and so she stood up abruptly and walked out the door. Yoh just sat there starring at the open door and suddenly his mother woke him up from his daze, "What are you doing just sitting there? Go after her!"

"Oh! Right!" As those words flew out of his mouth, the males slapped their foreheads as Keiko shook her head. Kino just sat there and sipped her tea quietly. The boy ran out the door in attempts to stop her from doing anything stupid, and when he stepped outside Anna was nowhere in sight. To confirm his worst fears he ran over to the cliff and looked down in horror and saw…

"You're such an idiot." His ears perked at the harsh and angered voice. But nevertheless he turned around and gave a large smile of relief.

"Anna! You're not dead!" As he said those words as he went to hug, Anna almost felt the need to draw three blue lines on the side of her head.

"Of course not! Why the hell would I do something as stupid as committing suicide?" She pushed him off roughly.

Yoh pondered for a moment before responding, "Cause… uh…" and nothing came out after that.

As the young lady stood up she started to speak, "I'm not going to leaving without avenging my father." Right when she was reminded of her dead village, she finally remembered why she was outside all riled up. "You! No… Your entire family!" Anna's anger took over her and she pounced Yoh, pushing him onto the floor. "You knew! You knew and you didn't help!"

"Even if we all tried we would not be able to defeat him." Yohmei came behind them explaining their reasoning.

"Why? You won't know if you don't try." An angered Anna pushed.

Mikihisa and Keiko stood behind the two eldest as they talked to the rebellious blonde. "That's the point, we do know if we tried. There was no way Yoh could have beaten him at his current level."

"Another thing, Kyouyama-san," Kino caught her attention, "There was a reason the village was attacked, and it wasn't all due to the fact that our family."

"Okaa-sama, are you sure that's alright?" Keiko asked her mother to think about it clearly before she told her.

"It's alright, go on Kino." The head of the family urged her to go on.

Anna had a confused look and awaited the reason.

"They were, or more like, he was after you." The small blind woman simply stated and with that she turned around and walked back through the door with the rest of the family following her.

Yoh sat next to her, watching his parent's retreating backs. When they all walked through, he saw his mother turn around and gave him a small smile before sliding the door closed. Turning around he faced Anna and saw her looking towards the ground. "Anna?" He asked, "Are you okay?"

Her hands clenched in anger and she replied to him, "No! No I'm not okay, alright! I haven't even done anything against them yet…" She fell silent again before continuing, "Why…"

"Uh… Are you sure you want to know?"

Almost as if the last straw, Anna blew up at him, "Of course I want to know, now tell me why!" She screamed at his face and grabbed the neck of his shirt.

"Okay, okay! Just relax for a bit and wait here." Yoh got up and left her alone outside. He went back into the house and went through the door. Anna sat there waiting and swinging her legs over the cliff. A couple seconds later Yoh sat beside her with a sealed box within his hands. Again more silence before Yoh cut through, "Around eight years ago, I met my first mochirei, Matamune. I don't remember all the exact details, but I do remember things like what he looked like and his name and stuff."

"What's any of this got to do with me?" She asked impatiently.

(A/N: If any of this gets confusing, which it shouldn't, refer to chapter 163 of Shaman King to get the just of things. This is almost like the Osorezan Reservoir arc, with minor twists in outcomes and stuff.)

"A lot." He smiled before going on, "I only knew him for three days, and during that period, I couldn't really do anything incredible like fly or have super speed or something. I was too young to know anything but swing a sword around. He sacrificed his entire life for me. In order for me to become stronger, he sacrificed himself for me to save someone. It was a bit selfish of me, but I had to save her no matter what. It was kind of a promise I had with her."

"Who is she?" Anna asked uninterested.

"I don't know." The girl looked at him weirdly. "One month after, I was attacked and by the time I woke up, the girl was just a blur. It was almost as if someone just erased her face. I remember everything else, though, so it's kind of weird."

"Okay… then what?"

"During that time, I found out she had an ability. It was a bit scary to even know that she had that kind of strength." Yoh took a sigh and continued, "A strength to read other people's minds. It might've of seemed like it was a amazing ability, but for her, it caused a lot of pain and suffering. Every time she went out her insecurities would get to her, and impure and dirty thoughts would go rush through her mind and depending upon the amount of people there were around her, the more people the worse everything would get. Therefore she stayed isolated. Just a mere thought of that brought up onis and literally destroyed everything in her sight. She was parentless, or so I thought, so she lived alone."

"How do you know that?" Unsurprisingly everything sounded really familiar.

"She told me. When I first met her she lived by herself, on the outskirts of town, with barely enough food to survive, no human or any kind of interaction. She was literally isolated and out casted." Slightly more interested, she listened a bit more closely. "I met her while I was going out into town for the first time ever. Obviously I somehow got lost judging that the trees all looked the same and I had no idea where I was going. My guard was no help at all, since it was his first trip down. After a while I met her."

Suddenly he began to chuckle raising another question from the girl, "What's so funny. Hurry up and finish." She said bluntly.

"She was so scary. Her eyes had a killer stare and she immediately hated me, I think."

"How do you know her eyes were so scary if you don't even remember her face." Anna remarked.

Yoh pondered for a moment, "Well, I just remember thinking that to myself. Sometimes there would be people who pass by just to pick on her, and you can think how badly that ended. During that time, I still have no idea why, but she was following me. I just ignored it and walked into a store on the outskirts of the village. Suddenly out of nowhere an Oni appeared and began attacking me. She told me to run, but I couldn't just let that thing run around causing terror so I stood up and fought it. Matamune wasn't there at the time, so I thought I was going to die but then the oni disappeared before it could attack me."

The girl nodded and continued to listen.

"I found out, that she was the one who made it go away. Afterwards, I followed her back with a dozen questions going through my mind but she didn't say a word as I followed her. She didn't say anything either when she left the door opens and walked into her home. So I just assumed and followed her."

"Pervert."

With just one word Yoh nearly fell off the cliff. While trying to climb back up he asked her, "How is that being a pervert!"

"You walked into a woman's home without permission. That is called being a pervert."

"She left the door open! Isn't that good enough signal to tell me to come in?" Yoh attempted to defend himself.

"No." Another word that made Yoh wear the face of an (¬_¬) emoticon. "She didn't say anything so you had no right going in there. Hmph, even when you were so young, you were such a pervert." Ending her sentence, she turned her head the other way.

"…" Was all Yoh said before continuing, "Anyways, during that time, she explained most of the stuff that happened in the village. Even about her past and her ability to read minds. I don't know what compelled her to tell me all that stuff, but I do remember one definite thing from that night."

Anna looked at him with an arched eyebrow.

"She had one killer slap." He laughed out loud, "I think her slap hurt her as much as it did me."

(A/N: Sorry for another one, but I'm going to rush through this really quick)

"She always just wanted to stay inside and be locked in forever. There was no way I could let her stay in there all by herself, isolated and alone…"

"Why not? If she wants to be alone, why not just leave her. It's what she wants isn't it?" Anna asked quietly.

"No one ever wants to be alone." Yoh smiled, "Even if they think they want to, they don't really want it. Even I know what that feels like."

"So? Then what."

"It was around night time, and the next day would be New years day. During that time I thought that there was always a way to get something if you do your best and try. So I told her I would help her, and we would go to the shrine together."

"What about the oni?" The blonde caught on quick. "Wouldn't they just get summoned once she goes to the shrine?"

Yoh chuckled and went on, "I said I would protect her. No matter what."

Anna looked at him in disbelief, "Why would you promise something you couldn't keep. You barely knew how to swing a sword let alone defeat an oni."

He smiled and said, "The crazy things I do just stack one after another."

"… What else did you say?" She demanded.

"Ehe, I promised, if I couldn't do anything then…" He swallowed a bit before continuing, "then I would become Shaman King for her and do something about it."

Anna stared at him in complete shock, "Shaman king? Are you crazy? Thousands of powerful shamans come together to compete, people even die!"

Yoh stuck his tongue out a little and rubbed the back of his head, "What did you expect, I was young."

"And stupid."

The teen ignores her and continued on, "I waited for her outside and surprisingly, she did come with me. Everything turned bad right when we got close to the shrine. There were so many thoughts and selfish wishes, according to her, that it went to the extent of Oo-oni appearing. Matamune came with us and defended us for a while, but I guess even for a strong spirit like him Oo-oni was nearly on par with him. While Matamune was down, the oni took this chance and stole the one thing that gave him more power. And that was the girl I was with was the source of his power."

"And you just let it take her?" Anna scoffed at his stupidity.

Yoh pouted, "I was just a kid, Anna." She gave him a 'There are no excuses' look and waited for him to go on, "Well, Matamune told me where the oni had taken her, and that it kept on sucking in spirits and gaining more furiyoku. He then told me only an oni could beat an oni, but that didn't stop me. I went towards the isolated shrine just trying to do anything I could. Before I went and got myself killed, Matamune told me there was one other way I could save her. But that way came at a price. I didn't want to do it, but for some reason he persisted that I did. There was a list of things he wanted me to do, and to the best of my ability I did everything he asked."

"He had to sacrifice his body." She guessed.

"She eventually came back to her sense, and…" He remembered those words she said to him as she made the oni disappear.

All she saw was, Yoh's face, extremely red and shy, "What'd she say?"

"Well… uh…" Yoh stuttered, "She kind of confessed to me in the middle of battle."

"How bold." Anna commented.

"The oni tried to get her, but Matamune's over soul managed to help me in beating him. The result of that wasn't exactly praiseworthy. I only saw her once after that, and let's just say I left crying. Matamune was gone, but somehow he still remains with me."

"So what was the last time you met like?"

"I found out she had one relative left from my grandmother. So under the request of Matamune, I did what he asked and brought her to him. He was a nice male itako, which was extremely weird since itakos are usually blind women."

"Yoh… I'm not blind." Anna wanted to smack him so badly.

"That's why it's weird! Baa-chan said it was cause of your blood." Anna had no idea what he was babbling about. "Apparently during then her mother brought her away, to try and protect her daughter but her father had to stay behind. So because of that we found out who that person was."

"Whom did you send her to?"

"To your father, Kyouyama Kouhei." This response caused her eyes to widen in shock.

"But that's impossible, my father had no other relatives. He was an only child and my mother died a long time ago, and… I'm his only…" She trailed off.

"That's right. The person I'm talking about is none other than you."

"You're lying." She stated, "If it were true, then I would remember, but I don't. I've been with my father ever since…" She stopped. She really couldn't remember anything before that. "I don't…"

"This might be the solution to that. Before Matamune died, he left something with me. Telling me only to open it when I feel its necessary. He told me when I touched it, it would reverse anything and bring back things we may have lost. Since he said I would know when to use it… so I think now is that time."

"What's inside?" Anna asked unsteadily.

"I know the form is of Matamune's bear claw necklace, but he put a spell on it that could be activated by me. So… ready?" He put in a crooked smile.

Anna was still a little shocked from the overload of information, "D-do we really need to? I mean you already know what happened and you just told me so…"

Before she even finished her sentence Yoh grabbed her hand and looked straight at her, "It'll be fine. I'm pretty sure Matamune wanted me to do this."

He threw the lid open and pulled her hand down along with his and touched her entire palm against the baikai. Within seconds, her mind was overwhelmed with memories and pain.

The last thing she heard was a certain boy screaming, "Anna!"

_"Is she alright?" _

_"She's fine, probably due to the overflow of information she got."_

_"Does she remember?"_

_"I told her."_

_"So it's her?"_

_"What do we do now?"_

_"Simple."_

_"How simple?"_

_"As simple as two words."_

_"Train her."_

"Uh…" Anna groaned while rubbing her forehead, trying to rid of her headache. Her entire body felt hot, and her cheeks were burning red. The room was dark but still bathing in the moonlight, her clothes were changed into a white yukata and she sat in the middle of an empty room, lying on a comfy, warm futon.

There were lights in the hallways and she could hear a pair of feet shuffling around outside. She was too tired to get up, so she sat there listening to the sound of footsteps. Faintly she heard Yoh's voice call out to his mother, "Oyasumi, Kaa-chan."

A slight pause, then he respond, "I will. You guys just sleep, I'll take care of her."

The blonde scoffed, "That's what I would be afraid of."

A shadow appeared through the door and Yoh's figure appeared as the door slid open.

Being the typical Anna, she tried to support herself up with much difficulty, only to fail and fall. "Anna!"

Yoh set the bowl of water on the floor and helped her lay down, "You have to relax. Your body's still weak from today."

She didn't want to be so weak, but since she didn't want to argue, Anna let him do what was needed. After she regained her past memories, she found it harder to believe that, that was her, but she then it was easier for her to trust the boy who saved her all those times.

"Just lay down and relax." Anna's eyes followed him as he grabbed the bowl of water and dipped a towel in it. "This might be a little cold, but it'll make you feel better." He wringed the towel slightly, draining out some water. Folding it neatly into a rectangle he reached over and dabbed the towel on her cheeks. She slightly flinched at the coldness, but nevertheless, it felt refreshing. After wiping off most of her sweat from her face and neck, he washed it again before placing it on her forehead.

Her body already cooling, she started up a conversation, "Why are you so nice and calm about everything?"

"What do you mean?"

"I literally told you to go pack up and drop dead, yet you still came back. Why?"

Yoh pondered for a minute then answered, "I dunno, I guess maybe because I don't like people feeling the same way I did."

"Hm… Is that so…" Silence spread for a few minutes, "What can I do now? I have no family, no friends, nothing."

"Well…" Yoh reached over to grab her towel and said, "You have me." He stated simply with a bright smile.

While Yoh was rinsing the he couldn't see the bright burning red cheeks on her face.

"Anna?" She was still starring blankly at him, surprised at his words, "Are you okay?" He put a hand on her forehead and exclaimed, "Dang you're burning up! Hang on…"

She pulled the blanket up to her chin. Although she didn't want to admit it, he made her stomache flutter and her heart race a million miles an hour. "Feel any better?" He asked after laying the cold towel on her head.

It felt like the cold towel just touched fire and it was already steaming hot again, but she just nodded either way. After a few more minutes he checked her temperature again, and it seemed much better than moments ago. Changing it one last time, he left the towel on her forehead before moving the water away and lying down next to her futon and on the tatami mat.

"You know, I bet you're wondering where you can go now."

"The thought occured." She replied cooly.

"Do you have any place?" He heard her shake her head with the soft whisper of a two-letter word.

Silence fell upon the room.

"Baa-chan said you could stay here. If you wanted to of course."

"Oh really."

"Under certain conditions of course."

"Like?"

"Well it differs. Whatever baa-chan thinks is suitable. She might train you to death though."

"Train me for what." They both lied there starring at the ceiling as they talked.

"She wants to prepare you for the next shaman tournament. Baa-chan thinks you have great potential to become a great itako. So…"

"I could make a great asset to your team in defeating whoever comes our way."

"In a way." Yoh trailed off.

"Yoh?" Anna asked, "Why do you want to become shaman king now? My ability to read minds is gone so theres no point anymore."

"Good point…" He thought for a moment and replied, "Then… to live an easy life! I just want everyone to get along so I won't have to stop anyone from fighting and stuff."

"Then will you take responsibility?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" He turned to her as she was still starring into the ceiling.

"You said you would become shaman king for me, eight years ago. I assure you a promise is a promise, and you have to keep it no matter what." She turned at looked him straight in the eye with a determined stare. "Will you keep that promise?"

He lied there stunned at her straightforwardness, thinking about what he should say. With no hesistation he spoke up, "I promise." And gave her his relaxed smile, "I even pinky promise!" His calm smile turning into a cheeky grin and held his pinky before her.

"How childish." She turned her face away.

"Aw come on, Anna! It's not that hard!" Yoh pouted.

Yoh begged and begged until she came around, and eventually, "Alright fine. It's getting annoying." She said, reffering to his constant nagging. So then she hooked her pink onto his and pressed their thumbs together. Afterwards she turned away, back into her original position. A few minutes passed and there was total silence.

"Which reminds me… how do I even keep that promise."

No response.

"Anna?" He turned to her just to find her with her eyes closed and breathing completely even.

He sat upwards and slowly grabbed her towel, trying not to wake her, and rerinsed the towel before placing it on her forehead once more. Once that was done, he slipped out of the room.

Outside the cool air, Yoh called upon his spirit, "Amidamaru, we should go into town. It seems that the fire is already out."

"It seems like the work of our friends." He watched from the mountain and towards the sky of black smoke.

"Are you sure it's alright to go Yoh-dono?" Amidamaru asked.

"That guy won't get me yet. We should go check up on them and see if Ren and them need any help." His spirit agreed and the two soon took off into the night.

At the burned down village, the smell of burning wood was so strong it burned his eyes a bit.

"Yoh!" A voice screamed out. He turned around to find Horohoro running towards him along with his spirit sitting on his shoulder, looking extremely tired. As soon they reached him, the blue haired shaman quickly explained the current situation, "About time you got here. We managed to drive away their soldiers and pushed them out of the border."

"I see, what about survivors?"

"We rescued a whole bunch, but we're not sure what to do with them. Their homes are all destroyed and other homes are pretty much just burned to the ground."

"Then we'll have to help out in rebuilding the town." Horohoro led Yoh to where the others were, while the young man was thinking of solutions to this tragedy. "We'll take any shelter or houses that aren't as damaged, and for now we'll have to let most of them sleep there. Afterwards we'll have to clean out all the burnt wood and regain flat ground. Ren and Ryou can do that, seeming Kororo is already looking pretty tired.

"Everything is easier said than done. Not only do we have to clean the water, we had to put out the fires too! A whole towns worth!"

Yoh let out a slight laugh, "Yeah, thanks a bunch Horohoro. Come on I can see them." They ran over to the light source and there stood Ren and company, along with all the survivors of the attack.

"About time, slacker." Ren glared at Yoh.

"Sorry Ren." He apoligized and went on in front of them, "There are a lot more survivors than I thought there would be." Yoh quickly took a head count and saw roughly about three hundred heads, excluding children and others who were lying down due to injures.

"How bad's the damage, Hakkin?" Yoh asked the second in command after Kyouyama.

"We've found some shelter for the survivors, but a lot of areas are horrible burned. It's already late so all of you should go home. Thank you for all your help in putting out the fire."

Hakkin was Kouhei's most trusted advisor, and now that he was gone, Hakkin was left to take responsibility. He already did his best to help his people, and found shelter for the night before they began to rebuild the damaged areas of their crisped home.

"We have a lot of work to do tomorrow, not to mention all the bodies that are lying around." All their eyes saddened, especially Yoh's.

"We'll be back to help tomorrow. See you later." Horo horo waved goodbye and left with everyone else.

After dispersing the only ones left were Hakkin and Yoh. Out of the blue Yoh said, "I'm sorry…" Hakkin had been one of the only ones whom knew of Yoh's identity as an Asakura. Of course, being a part of the clan before getting destroyed helped as well. Hakkin wasn't directly related to the Asakura's but being adopted by the family allowed him to know the secret.

"There wasn't anything you could do, Yoh. So stop being all depressed, it's not like your usual self. Therefore, lift up your chin and move forward." He put a hand on his shoulder and continued, "Somehow everything will work out."

Yoh smiled at him and thanked him. Amidamaru and Yoh began their trip back home in the mountain. As they went through the forest Yoh took a detour and doubled back to the lake. The moon glistened over the smooth surface of the water, while the wind blew gently across causing slight ripples in the water. Starring into the reflection of the bright moon, Yoh clenched his jaw.

His spirit could sense his distress over the recent events, "Yoh-dono… It wasn't your-"

"You're wrong…" He leaned downed and picked up a flat pebble from the ground and gently brushed the dirt off. "We both knew it was my fault."

"Yoh-dono…"

"It is my fault… He's doing this because of me… That stupid prophecy!" Releasing all his anger Yoh literally chucked it across the lake, and listened to the rock skid the water countless of times before hearing rustle of leaves on the opposite side.

Yoh walked over to the largest tree in surrounding the lake. The boy brushed his fingers over the jagged engraving of hiragana and whispered aloud, "Everything will work out." He suddenly felt relieved as he remembered those words. Using his bare hands he picked up another rock that was ten times his size and screaming at the top of his lungs, he threw it into the lake. The explosion of water soared through the air and completely soaked the boy down to the bone.

"Feeling better?" Yoh's back was still facing him as he starred into the moonlight.

For about a minute nothing was said then he responded, "Yea, let's go home."

With those words the rest of the night had faded away but this was only the beginning of the end.

_His _end.

NOTE: I've rewritten this chapter a few times since all the previous ones didn't really suit me. Some parts maybe a bit confusing so read closely, as it goes. Another thing to remember is that usually itakos are blind, but in this case Kouhei and Anna are strong enough to endure that.

Character:

Hakkin: Not like the word hacking, but pronounced Ha-kin. With the k cut short. His name derives from the Japanese form of Platinum. There's another reason why I picked this name, but I won't get into all the symbolism.


End file.
